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Divine Comedy of Patriotism: 



BY 

•/ 



MORTIMER THOA^SON. 



"Now Barabbas was a publisher." 

LORD BYRON. 

I am mine own Barabbas ! 

M. T. 



NEW YORK: 

PRESS or DUANE PRINTING COMPANY, 

56 & 55 rULTON STRCIzT. 

1900. 

L- 



SECOND COPY, 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED, 

Library of Cangrat^ 
Offjoo f thd 

API? 10 1900 

Begrttdr af Copyrtjfht^ 



75 ^^^1 
T4 



61525 

Copyrighled a. D. i900Du 

GIlOPOC MOPTinCP THO^iSON. 



This worif is also Copyrig-hted in Great Britain. 



TO 
POBERT GIBSON, 

OF THE 

New YOPK STOCK EXCHANGE, 

The Author InscriDes 

THIS BOOK 

With High Recognizance and Regard. 



THE DIViNE COMEDY OE PATRIOIISM. 



"The one voice in Europe." 

"Let your reforms for a moment go; 

Loo., to your butts, and take good aims; 
Better a rotten borough or so 

Than a rotten fleet or a city in flames." 

"Britons, guard your own!" 

LORD TENNYSON. 

The "open door"; let no one shut it! 

MERCATOR MUNDL 

Non odium ahrorum sed amor justitiae hie ducit. 

EGO. 

Colon, descubridor de sitios para aduanas! 

ESTE POETA. 

ECCLESIASTES XIL— 12-13— 14. 

L KINGS XXL and XXIL in toto. (Naboth's Klondike.) 

Isaiah I. — 25. (Temescal.) 

The Georgica of VERGIL had for their object "to make men proud of their 
country on better grounds than the mere glory of its arms or extent of its con- 
quests." 

PROF. MERIVALE. 

"The British Empire is the greatest secular agency for good now known to 
mankind." 

EARL OF ROSEBERY, N'ber, 1892. 

"Cultivate peace and narmony with all." — "Give to mankind the magnanimous 
and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevo- 
lence." 

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 

"With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have 
not interfered, and shall not interfere." 

PRESIDENT MONROE. 

'"They who take the sword shall perish by the sword." ' 

PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



"In our code of morality, conquest would be a crime not to be thought of." 

PRESIDENT M'KINLEY. 
"La diritta via era smarrita." 

LA DIVINA COMMEDIA DI DANTE. 



Lo e quasi sempre. 

"The rise and long roll of the hexameter." 



LA MIA. 



LORD TENNYSON. 



"Name is but shroud and smoke clouding the glow of Heaven." 

GOETHE. 

"The world belongs to him that wins." 

SCHILLER. 

"Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and Envy, the vice of republics." 

LONGFELLOW. 

"So that, according to Longfellow, one is not free from weakness, nor the 

other from sin." BUNCOMBE. 

Concerning the Diplomacy of Intrusiveness, of which more than one nation 
is guilty, and in rebuke of it, the Hon. George Gray, Senator of the United States 
for Delaware, and one of the negotiators at Paris of the latest treaty between his 
country and Spain, wrote in the North American Review, April, 1895: "It is med- 
dlesome and aggressive; it is envious and suspicious; it is covetous and not very 
scrupulous; it exemplifies the evil of power without self-control, and of susceptibility 
to insult without a due proportion of self-respect. Its spirit is that of conquest; its 

first reason, as well as its last, is force It has claimed the right, in 

disregard of our own most cherished traditions, to visit and search the ships of 
friendly powers on the high seas in time of peace, only to be condemned by an 
impartial tribunal of arbitration. It overthrows by force a Queen in Hawaii in the 
name of liberty and annexation, and maintains by force a King in Samoa in the 
name of independence and autonomy." 

"In the deep heart of man care builds her nest." 

GOETHE. 

"Care comes in and with all serious duties, but cheerfulness neutralizes its in- 
fluence; therefore, let us be jovial with the Comedian." 

ANCIEN CHEVAL. 



The Divine Comedy of Patriotism. 



Life being too short for long story, I write several brief ones 

Tn guise of Court Fool and address them to you: though impersonal, 

If you find yourself in them the fun will be just so much larger, 

I mean with you in them as citizen, statesman or people. 

The court of the jester being wider than that of Our Lady. 

This is written for any year that resembles the present, 

And as such must recur, why, my tales must return with the period. 

In their progress a humor peculiar may frequently touch you; 

One of interest when satire or ridicule mainly is needed; 

Immortal by fits, as a thing of a value revolving. 

From the easy coil and the limber trip of the metre 

Infer not a poem: I vow this is comedy merely; 

Spread over a vast lot of life, but still strictly comedy; 

Presenting new views of the worth and the sport of stump speeches. 

Too little known in the lands at once speechful and stumpless. 

As a fact I am trembling to think of the wrath of the poets. 

Dear Douglases tender and true of the bardic afflatus, 

Who will damn my misuse of the verse of the first of all poets. 

Chronological foredad of those who must chant or die panting. 

'Tis the spring of the stanza that carries the leap of the meaning; 

No rhetorical prose has an equal arc of significance. 

That is why I select the most rolling and flowing of measures; 

Not heroics on wooden-leg march, but the cadence of ballad. 

My narratives move without plot cf the old stagey species. 

Without being classic of frame or of classified tableaux. 

Although fluent to read; full of dashes at follies and failings. 

7 



Not a page but has something for some one, from bishop to nihiHst, 

From Lazarus to Dives and those who are variously graded, 

With the wealthy duly abused, and from all sorts of standoffs. 

They include many subjects and phases for ending euphonious, 

And are crowded with patriots galore in the latest of motley, 

The specimen-actors, I think, being more than three hundred. 

From emperors, admirals and popes down to Tammany stabbers. 

Mere congruity is not the chief aim of my Opus, 

Nor Greek order, much as I love it, nor syllabic visions; 

But those great and small things which invite of themselves, and surprises 

Like will-o'-the-wisps that freshen the mind as they lure it. 

My purpose is manifold: rather my objects are many, 

Yet never astray from a theme of some fellow's diversion. 

Not a moralist is the jester unless for the satire. 

Not desultory this book that its topics are varied. 

Hexametric tribunal of hits on some shams patriotic, 

It is writ from the points of view of all parties and nations 

By one who has paid for his data in purse and experience. 

Are you prone to condemn? Then think first of this explication. 

Are you in for some fun? Then you may forego explanation. 

And what though the themes of our sport be a week or a month old, 

Or a year? I cannot illustrate by what has not happened, 

And if I could rig up the future you would not accept it. 



No censure herewith is intended, but simply correction 
Of exaggerated love of political systems. 

Which too frequently is confounded with true love of country. 
Washington says, in his farewell address, that this is an error, 
And Washington still is a man who commands some attention. 
I stand for the patriotism of judgment distinguished from passion 
And for the assertion of judgment when passion is raving. 
Statesmen serious need not this hint; but political foghorns 
In all the senates and forums on earth, do require it, 
And the balloteers misled by the din of their signals. 



1 insist that the mass be instructed, whoever may do it, 

That campaigns of education, in fact, be augmented, 

Until every integral man be his own politician. 

For to see comes far short of enough: to foresee is the duty; 

Therefore choose with more care the chiefs whose profession is foresight. 

The partisan pure is a heedless forerunner of mischief 

Unless when he meet two less heedless who vote to suppress him. 

In my great age I do not expect to avoid the young teacher; 

In fact, 'tis because I am old he will surely assail me; 

Yet, I pray, comprehend v/hat I say, or say nothing about it. 

This is due to the critic as much as it is to the author. 

Do not set yourself up in my place and then knock yourself over; 

That trick is played out alike for the sharps and the imbeciles. 

Be a new fool of fresh style, if at all, just as I am. 

Or, better, be wiser and trace me the sweep of my folly. 

You might do that with simplicity and no venom. 

Virtues and faults are my themes, and in singular medley. 

Not the Don of Lord Byron, I take it, was half so fantastic 

As the patriots and others of gifts who shall pass in my purview. 

I am equally far from subserviency and defiance. 

To him bent on satire approval is merely an incident. 

Whether it be approval of friend or of commonwealth. 

I apologize in advance if I hurt any feelings, 

And hope you may find yourself happy to sit in my circus. 



Assumption of role and espousal of cause with your conscience 

Are two things of sorts wide apart, it is well to remember. 

This is meant for the politician philogeneric 

Whose program is love of all men for the love of an ofiice, 

As in footlight aside of low voice he will tell you with laughter. 

State-quack, moth of freedom; 'tis hard to denounce him too strongly: 

Magniloquent in expounding the cause of disruption; 

The Brunelleschi not of a dome but a nadir, 

He sets us aghast at the chasm he constructs for the glories 



Described by old John of Gaunt, son of Edward Successful, 
And bullies the world to mistake mere bull will for high morals, 
Destroying time-honored Lancaster's time-honored prophecy, 
This Proteus of error of those who grew great by Poseidon. 
Let us pray our Poseidon he never repeat us our Proteus, 
For I am the bard of the freedom and rights of the oceans. 
And shall canto them up in high form ere I come to my colophon. 
He who fails in perceiving the things he prefers to be blind to 
Is not of the days of advance, neither friend of his country. 
There are too many such ; and I am the foe of the fetich 
Which consists of a man as the pope of his little non possum; 
His ad vincula is simply by private volition. 

Praying God through himself and belaying the worship in transit.. 
Let us shift the base and the goal for the pace of true issues 
While the space is left us ashore or afloat for the duty. 
None of these matters can drift or run slipshod forever, 
And this is a very fair morning for sailing or sprinting. 



Nombreuses les activites et etranges les destins d'un peuplel 
Grandeur is not in vicissitude: look at French history. 
France is great in her ways because France, not by reason of system. 
She was equally great for the epochs as kingdom or empire 
On hnes w^hich appear close and dear to the present republic. 
And would be again in this epoch if kingdom or empire; 
Bui. I am not forcing this proposition, nor any; 
Our purpose is to consider these themes, not to quarrel. 
The ethnic renown of the French was not built on the ballot. 
And some of it was acquired by the chop automatic. 
France is lesser, not grander, by reason of debt due to tumult, 
And in morals were better developed uncurst by the cost of it. 
Let Time have his way to undo as he had in the doing; 
The debacle is cheaper than cutting ofif heads by the hundred. 
Race-temperament may be cremative of judgment. 
Five hundred million pounds are too much for a guillotine. 

10 



To stop interest one begins by paying- the principal. 

Few contribuables gain by a war, but all pay for it. 

Fourteen hundred million pounds of a debt bearing interest 

Inspire no just hope to recoup through the sons'of the boucans; 

They rather suggest a chance of repeating the assignats. 

Be not deceived by the looks of the things simply lucky. 

Neither monarchy nor democracy solveth tough problems 

Alone; each depends on conditions not governmental, 

As well as on politics sound ; and yet both are imperfect. 

But an Atlantic of land should support any system 

With an old and great nation's experiences merely transplanted. 

Climatic limitations are rigorous in Canada ; 

A fact which bestows on the States a decided advantage, 

They being largely free from these, as from some others kindred. 

Fortune and newness may put upon morals false aspects : 

That is an item which clearly might stimulate thinking. 

Anarchy cannot decide economical problems. 

And an anarchical problem cannot be conjured 

Unless as a contradiction in terms : it is social, 

But not as belonging to tribe, or to sect, or to faction. 

Yet problems sicken and droop 'mid the flowers of rhetoric, 

Which peculiarly seem to flourish in zephyrs unsweetened. 

Or are riddled by bomb survived from the French revolution. 

Before setting out to copy a prosperous new nation, 

Be sure that the old one can build on the new one's conditions. 

Add as much as you can to your acres, but not to your people. 

The replenishing of the earth is a practice too easy; 

Moreover, the need of it is not just now self-assertive. 

Neither commune nor czar can raise wheat on the Prairie of Cobi. 

I am simply inviting your wider thought on this topic. 

If already correct, you will issue the stronger for thinking. 



Chance is dead in some new lands of chance : it died of a discount,. 
A species of fever that burns up the blood of the future ; 

11 



At least so their newspapers say in effect ; I condense it. 
So long as machine runs itself, engineer is superfluous ; 
But the day of repair is as sure as the day of creation. 
Politics provide only fun for the politicians 
And pay for the sons of starvation at earning a living; 
This refers not to men of the civil and civilized service, 
But to those who, outside it, contrive to draw high pay as patriots. 
There are purities, too, in all parties as well as all nations ; 
Give them welcome ; they trouble the politicians with principles. 
There are others asserting the average as highest of standards. 
Shall simian chatter shatter the dome of a conclave 
While the world is invited to take it for wisdom of freemen? 
Noblesse oblige : so do the commandments of Moses, 
And the golden rule, in kingdom, republic or poorhouse. 
In honor prefer one another : a Paulic suggestion 
Commending itself to religious men high up on state-stilts, 
Presbyterians or those of less rigid denominations 
Outside of the narrow sweetness and light of John Calvin. 
Better the rule of the honest agnostic outspoken 
Who confesses he knows it not all and hopes you may aid him, 
Than that of the sanctimonious, cant-laden puritan 
Reeking with hatred and bloodshed and sermons and envy. 
Such as Charles Rex polished off in October, Sixteen-'Sixty, 
And who to-day would cavort the same in conventicle, 
Whipping Quakers and making witches to order, and slaying. 
Would you be a Paul at the feet of such a Gamaliel 
And for statesmanship take his bad temper after election? 
Is any new step in religion or politics possible 
Without an imposing hypocrisy to begin with, 
One intense enough to displace and replace common conscience? 
I ask this of every known people, not of one only. 
Beg not the question by babbling of zealotries minor. 
But select the most nasal of all David's psalms for your answer. 
Greatness consists not in territory fortuitous. 
Neither does it consist in expansion gratuitous. 
Although manifest destiny sometimes appears to impel it ; 

12 



Nor in overrunning of land as by cohorts of bison; » 

Nor by citizen-squatters-at-ravage who kill for pre-emption ; 

Neither in threats at a weaker fictitiously equal, 

Foisted by treaty up to unnatural level ; 

Yet some little men oversized find it hard to believe this. 

A thousand-mile-long of a railway from nowhere to nowhere 

Which builds up the wilderness intervening with townships 

And welcomes a convoy of palace-cars laden with Pograms, 

Provides rich new fields for the brigands : you build up ; they hold up. 

My Lothair says if Bonaparte Founder had broken Great Britain 

Instead of succumbing to British attrition ubiquitous, 

There would have been two big republics less among nations. 

Thus the date is past due, and long past, for their thanks to Old England;, 

For deep gratitude long overdue for autonomy and freedom. 

My Lothair is a Yankee Marquis, with Lowell his 'Quisate. 



Because her defence 'mid some aliens may not be quite popular, 

Shall Britain the builder of states and the leader in commerce, 

Whose genius has dotted a globe with the posts of her empire. 

Who governs the world by the drum-beat of Senator W^ebster ; 

England, giver of speech with free speech and trade, letters and statutes. 

Providing complete the outfit of civilization, 

A highly-dressed system constructed on somebody else's 

Whether the outfit may fit you, or swaddle or smother ; 

Like Japan, smashing other men's wares and then making them pay for it ; 

England, founding free states for polyglot foreign Arcadians 

Who create not themselves, but absorb her results like a maelstrom, 

The three-decker island of argosies, flagship of freedom, 

Shall Britain be gibed and no son dare to speak for his mother? 

Not while I live, though I die for the duty I live for. 

But my pride is abated, as likewise my strength of conviction. 

When I think that my ancestors slept with the pigs in the parlor 

For fear some free Anglo might pass in the night and escort them, 

13 



I stare with surprise at my section of civilization, 

As at that which some joint friendly powers keep a-pressing on China. 



The man of big talent wins wonderfully by chances, 
Which means he is safe till a bigger has found his occasion ; 
Since that one is more smart than another will never be other 
In the sordid and sharp competition of scopes wholly selfish : 
Whereas he of character gains by the force that is lofty 
United in form which makes talent proud to be servant. 
You will stay at the front if you do not surrender your character 
For the fascinating and shifty possession of talent, 
Imitating the superficial deficient in ethics. 
This piece is quite trite, but will do to be spoke at a meeting 
Of those who are given to patting themselves and each other 
On the back ; a practice prevailing with favor in England. 



Every great nation is built on absorption or conquest, 

And notably a republic which sabred a dissidence 

Born of opinions renascent from previous rebellion. 

If this were not true and justified, how could a nation 

Cohere, not alone for expansion, but simple existence? 

If you do it by loyalty your petition finds audience 

In time ; by the time you are dead ; but you fractured no principle ; 

You suffered and left for your son what was due to his father. 

If you do it by revolution, revolute always. 

If good to begin, revolution is good to continue. 

You are loyal, too: why not? Loyal to revolution. 

But you are not yet quite through with the game, and must do some more 

thinking. 
Revolution begets revolution, despite your finalities. 
Reflect on this fact when the socialist asks you for something. 
Or the communist, or the anarchist; we did not start him 

14 



In the progress that takes what it can, like Japan, when 'tis ready. 
"We have done nothing more clever than call back King Charley. 
'True, he was wicked; but that did not fracture our principle, 
Which was that our surfeit of revolution was permanent; 
That stability is the primal condition for empire. 
And that revolution as permanent hope of the restless 
Weakens all moral law in ratio precise with its prevalence. 
You should think up some way to achieve without revolution. 



Conquest of equal by equal was law in past eras: 
To please you shall we lose its effects? You just set the example! 
We cannot undo deeds we wish the past never had thought of, 
As you cannot blow back into life the old ashes of witches, 
And, in their descendants, cannot unwhip the old Quakers; 
T am not trying to make it that we are the better; 
And we will not add suicide to the wrongs of the ages. 
Nor will puritan statesmen have brow enough to suggest it, 
Since the gents of that kidney are very tenacious of oneness. 
Other policies work through disintegration to chaos. 
If I can comprehensively crystallize interests 
Of nations 'round bases of sense, I shall do some good service. 
Let agitators remember with us it is union, 
And that our right to punish is equal with theirs to do treason. 
I feel certain that President Lincoln would so have expressed it, 
Had that great man been called on for counsel in foreign rebellion. 
No state propagates the terms of its own dissolution. 
Even though its foundations were laid in political tenebrae, 
And a state is an empire, whether republic or other; 
Nor will friendly state expect that another permit it 
That the friendly state may thereby pluck political profit. 
The first and last duty is that of imperial integrity. 
With academic debates to amuse us betweentimes 
When no one is trying to shut treaty ports more or less solemn 
In the treaty-guarantee of an openness general. 

IS 



There is a point where we fire ofi the gun: why not tell it? 

Do we live by our rights in the world, or by somebody's favor? 

'\fter more than a thousand years, no step toward heptarchy! 

loo quick the foreign nudge if we hint about abdication. 

Too much are we called to resign if we show the least weakness. 

If universal disruption were waiting all nations 

We ought to be strongest of all to proclaim extreme doctrines 

i^nd to put ourselves at the head of the world's fair of equity. 

We should swing a bright blade of far reach in the conflict of empires. 

Four hundred and twenty millions are loyal, if organized. 

Let there be a formula for converging their loyalty 

And the millions themselves irresistibly at a menace. 

With a faraway giant friend near us only if needed; 

One whose unctious rectitude in the dealings of peoples 

Resembles that which adds other's dominions to Britain. 

I can fancy a vast British fleet that need never see Albion, 

And it cannot be that I am alone in a vision 

So prepotent and vivid, so worthy Lord Chatham's successor; 

Yet I marveled on many a sea that no great man proposed it. 

No Guy Nevil, no Strafford, u.p to the size of his empire, 

Till at length I seized Cecil Rhodes to replace Warren Hastings. 

I felicitate you on your East and West Indies, moreover, 

States! and 'tis for their good, just as our rule is everywhere. 
The tyranny of superiors is better for freedom 

Than the liberty of inferiors who don't comprehend it. 

Never mind constitutions which about this new subject are silent! 

How could they speak out when they could not foresee the conditions? 

We are all very strong in the doctrine of President Lincoln: 

Union first: then whatever you choose so you touch not the union. 

1 am not stunned by the splendid blare of Our Empire, 
Nor dazed by display of its banners and count of its races, 
But I wish that we make it a unit against all aggression 

Or confess that we hold it by grace of some little wedge-driver, 
Be he native statesman of severance or buffer in Asia, 
Or nine Frenchmen at Fashoda in a Nile-game of ninepins. 
Or bluffer or duffer in Europe or elsewhere: I care not. 

56 



lO. 

Love of country comes of gooa feeding and love of the acres 
That furnish it, more than of institutions poHtical, 

Though sometimes the two 'come confused at the end of grand dinners, 
A freak of nature escaped from a tuppeny sideshow, 
Or a foreign fugitive swift from the stigma of murder, 
Is not the material whereof may be moulded a statesman. 
Affect to consider the agitator a statesman 

If you choose; we know that you know him and have your own purpose. 
But we discount the game; so it does you no good to palaver, 
And you know what this means if the humorist say nothing further. 
No man is political criminal; all crime is by statute. 
Not for loving freedom too well are you stepping the treadmill; 
.'Twas the breach of her laws, or some others, that brought you in convict. 
Think of that when for reasons of freedom you carve up a gentleman. 
There is truly no politics, as such, in carving a gentleman, 
Though there might be some in keeping one untried in prison 
For crime, not for politics, till his foes buy his freedom 
By bail, while outsiders try him by writing and shouting. 
A big case was his, with a funnybone shock for denouement. 
We should have offered him naturalization and embassy. 
Je suis L'Homme Qui Rit: will some President contradict me? 
Remember this is a comedy based on stump speeches, 
Though not of new style, but of genuine, old-fashioned order 
With the hits that wake partisans up and inspire their responses. 
A stump speech from the tail of a palace-train is a humbug 
Which ought to shame Mr. Depew and some other pow-wow men. 
I insist on the woods and the stump and the citizens shouting, 
Such as I walked many miles to applaud in my boyhood. 
I do not fear to make free with the humbug of dignity, 
Th'e war-joss of nations that violate civilization 
In its own name, the mask of the egoist purpose. 
Let all governments use comic editors as ambassadors! 
I should be proud were I comic enough for such ofifice. 

17 



II. 

The finishing- stroke diplomatic would be one appointment 

Whereby you were sure of success in offending- two nations 

Both of which like to be friendly but will not be pranced on; 

Transforming the art of avoiding to that of entangling; 

Let us keep our minds what Friend Washington told us about it; 

Or inviting forgiveness because you are dull and unmannered 

And have wakened the world to new notions of foreign relations. 

What should we say if the Queen should invite some great strangers 

And conspicuously quit the town at their moment of coming? 

Better to pitch the key of diplomacy higher, 

Not in fury, but concord, tuning your horns of dilemma 

To hexameters chanted in lucrative cadence spondulic, 

Least stilted of measures and bounding with profit euphonious. 

Either that, or paint on your 'scutcheon a goad with the motto 

Applicatio posterior betulae mores emendat. 

The foreign lines are not for my countrymen needful, 

But intended for aliens thoughtful of me and these topics, 

And are classical just as I choose to conform to nine standards, 

More or less; perchance fewer; I intend not to fight on that issue. 

Several things herein were approved by state men of three races, 

In officio, too, not by pessimist, second-chop exes. 

Audire alterem partem pars est bonorum mororum. 

Maybe statesmanship has not a vital connection with morals, 

Yet surely 'twould err in any attempt to subvert them. 

Beware tlie magnetic man! He wins not by intelligence, 

But by just enough cunning to substitute something inferior. 

If you win by a keel why should you defend by a leeboard ? 

For reciprocity let us substitute philophocity, 

Or the love of the seal as distinguishd from love of the sealskin. 

And with that philoprocity, law of the love of the peoples; 

Thus renouncing the system of mulcting the nations not servile. 

Discrimination and fines have a queer look in commerce. 

18 



12. 

If you seek as fixt object a hegemony with neighbors 

I'Jext door or at many thousands of doors from your owl-key, 

Persuade not with ultimata which violate treaties 

Unless you arrange them for fun or to smash by devices. 

Mas valable es el asiento si no arrancado. 

In forcing the growth of ex-colonies, skip the fool's paradise; 

Leave that to the old mother-countries that found it by founding you, 

Such as Britain, Spain, France; on your accounts proud, poor and sorry. 

Let the chiefs of fresh nations line up against phrenic inflation. 

The signs of the zodiac are futile for trumps at draw-poker 

So long as the game is a bluff among figments of planets. 

You must jackpot the stars ere you trump with the signs of the zodiac. 

13- 

Surely great politicians are men of a mission peculiar. 

Their best measures are stepping-stones only to measures tentative, 

And they always teach rivals how to despoil them of office. 

And their speeches precede even themselves to the shelves of back numbers 

Unless they be men like Lord Bea, or my friend Daniel Webster: 

Whereby they are victims, methinks, of distinction sardonic. 

Be you, then, sardonic on fate and let pass the distinction. 

The true, real patriot of every nation is tory. 

Strange as this sounds in the ears of the tongues that curse tories. 

I apply this remark not alone to the lands of the Britons. 

Be not laggard, O Britons, in taking a tip from new poet! 

And insist on reforming reform and reformers; their premises 

Are radical errors, and a will-o'-the-wisp is their logic. 

Symposists had led us to isolation and menace. 

Now be lastingly Tory and arm, and burn the symposium. 

The policy that sacrificed Gordon would sacrifice anything. 

■Or that which led up to loading the Boer States with cannon, 

Foreign officers, rifles, whatever could injure Our Empire. 

19 



14- 

The masses swing first to one doctrine and then to another, 

And even when wrong they are right because they are the people. 

One man may be damned, but a milHon are saved though they follow hira,. 

Numbers substituting themselves for the law and for conscience. 

The moral law is a fiction of human intelligence 

AVhereby intellectual men govern those who are less such. 

Not wrong the effusive buffalo marching by thousands 

And at double-quick stride and long pace eft'acing a county ; 

This is nothing against the Augustus of long horns and goring; 

He had not been properly trained in respect for the county. 

They will none of a leader, but push up a dummy to follow, 

And on changing their cue knock him out and set up another. 

If a minister make himself loved where he speaks for his country 

He is wrong, and must win respect out of fear of his nation. 

In no sense may he substitute himself for his country, 

Though he be gentleman finished like Pauncefote or Lowell. 

All levelers are jealous of level more lofty ; 

A fact in nature, not a political incident 

Peculiar to institutions in any man's country. 

If plain Grant or Lincoln be greater than either accomplished. 

Why not abolish your schools, O ye paradox-hummers ? 

Your colleges, lavishly copied from old world examples? 

Have you no use at all for the men who are highly instructed ? 

If not, wherefore teach to your boys what your manhood makes fun of?" 

Aha ! yet 1 see for your conduct some justification. 

Education makes what the bases give it the chance for, 

"While the bases sometimes evolve by inherent vigor; 

Which makes me think nature may not intend education 

For those who can come to the front by direct evolution : 

Commodore Vanderbilt and John Churchill illustrate my meaning. 

In both church and state let us quit self-felicitation ; 

Let us shut off the wind of self-praise from the brass band and organ,. 

And out of mere shame take up some creative duty 

In beneficence free from conceit and denominations. 

20 



15- 

!lvIothing ripens a cause like the blood of the man who has shed it. 

Ere the last drop be run the cause is already immortal. 

You sustain his cause by mere mention of name of the martyr, 

In a double sanctification the two thus uniting. 

Think of this when about to murder another Lord Cavendish, 

And remember that murder is always murder, not politics. 

And that you were convicted of crime, not imprisoned for shouting. 

i6. 

We justify change to experimient v/ith a principle, 
But your purposes should not be laid on political fun lines. 
Nor on euphemisms, nor with too much philanthropy mingled. 
Difit'erentiate the love of man from political objects, 
Because, if devoted to both, one or other will trip you. 
If inclined to joke, respect those who can see no joke in it. 
Fun in foreign affairs is demoralizing and costly. 
And likely to lead to no fun in your treaty relations. 
Do not love your country so much : try to do something for it. 
Love is blind ; you are not ; use your eyes for the patria's errors. 
Preserve the distinction between a right and a privilege. 
Which seems much too apt to become confused in some newlands. 
Free and equals in rights should not be unequal in privilege. 
Be not fooled by substitution : if it be economic 
Keep the theme on that base and let it not drift into politics 
Unless you have ballots enough to compel its acceptance. 
Compel the politician to be an economist, 

Or slay him, of course in the sense of his trade, if he will not. 
This requires education alone, and decision, to do it. 
Put your faith in consecutive growth, in continuous purpose. 
Who discovers it all at once saves the future the trouble 
And is not a genius so much as a lusus naturae ; 
Pie lacks the deft ways of experience whereby to adapt it. 
You may take up the theme where he left it and nrove him a charlatan. 

21 



The heir of a self-made pedigree born into boredom 

Has nothing for you but self-praise to explain his existence. 

This is very hard on the sons of successful fathers, 

While 'tis hard to be the successful son of such father. 

Great head needs not God: a greater or lesser accepts him. 

17- 

Is the alien aegis a shield or a shackle for peoples ? 
Is the previous panoply-doctrine transmuted to menace ? 
Some Presidents told me they deemed it a threat with long shadow.. 
Would you rather develop your own, or a stranger's ideal? 
Would you rather be forced to be free, or be free without forcing? 
Quien se habria independizado solo para caer vencido 
Por el vecino mas fuerte, extranjero de sangre, 
El caudillo mismo de falsas palabras fatidicas, 
Sugetiendo de proteger, obligando a aceptar? 
Loor a la libertad ! Veneracion sublime 
A la independencia que existe en la naturaleza, 
Y no en las teorias de los egoistas. 
If Colombia be independent by grace of another 
Is Colombia free, or a simple bondwoman of nations? 
Independence by one guarantee is not independence; 
It insures the control of one nation over another. 
That will do for a maxim new in the law between nations, 
And the world will wonder, five years hence, it ever was questioned.. 
Aliancia forzada con Mexico para defenderlo 
Pareceria a los del pais un paso del conquistador. 
I continue some obvious truths in the style of stump speeches. 
Pretension to any control outside your dominion 
Will not be accepted; annex it, or touch not a tropic, 
Asia for Asiatics; Europe for Europeans, 
And so forth: the sea is a wall; and if ocean be lacking, 
Or other divisional, make up the want with a doctrine. 
If pride of race be true among Spaniards or others, 

22 



If it be real, why not resume old allegiance, 
Dropping the gloriole glinted from foreign assistance? 
This is academic discussion without living interest; 
An allegory illustrates a theme without passion. 
And no point of offense can be taken where no one is mentioned. 
Genuine independence means cutting adrift from the language, 
In your new high tone quite away from the tongue of your seniors 
And the laws, letters, ways of those you broke suddenly loose from. 
Any other conception involves a mere fight with your parents, 
Which requires your apology both in politeness and morals. 
When the other fellow is arming precisely as you are, 
Does patriotism mean you prefer to be killed for your country. 
And that both would be happier to die than to live for the patriae? 
Or is it the riant mask of the thoughtful and sorrowful 
Who behind it are biting the file of their bitter dischantment? 
Is no regret blufifed away in the flaunt of your standard, 
Nor absorbed in the roll of your drums and the blare of your trumpctsi 
I am neither advising nor hinting, but simply inquiring. 
Remember the joke is on me when 'tis not on my topic. 
Let nobody answer these questions by easily begging them. 
The small politician high up always begs or denies it. 
His business is not to be fit for a place, but to get one, 
The smallest man to the largest position aspiring. 
Homage to President Diaz, who is not of this order; 
The Monroe of Latin-American independence. 
Not of the independence thrust on a protege. 
Castelar intends to be truthful, but flatters no Saxon. 
If rhetoric could uplift Spain he had made her a giant. 
They who bet on orators forfeit the stakes among nations, 
As the rule, and the short-worded Saxon seems to absorb them. 
We overesteem the wrong gifts: that is why we are losers; 
That is, those who have not yet learned to esteem the irue science. 
We began far too wise in our own conceit with the Transvaal, 
And atoned at a cost which seems to be British exclusively. 
And everlastingly, in life, prestige, criticism, treasure. 

23 



But let us dispute of these topics like Sunday-school children: 
Torn paper may litter the floor at the end, but no blood there. 



If our genius be that of the monk, yours is that of the layman 

The instant the hymns have been sung- that express your religion. 

Secular excess runneth not into ultimate profit; 

It produceth the tramp and the quack, who bring not the true empire. 

We shall grope, on our side, to a paradise much less abnormal. 

Your feints and shifts work not out your emancipation. 

You do not successfully sneer yourselves free of our worship, 

As we never try to sneer ourselves loose of your friendship. 

Is the era of truth and of dead affectations upon us? 

It is much to the kingdom of God and of men if it be so! 

Be patriot as hot and swift as a star space-pervading. 

Yet permit a like orbit to those who have much of your likeness. 

'Tis enough that my country is quietly great among nations ; 

Quietly great without reference to buncombe or bunting. 

If she make not a noise periodic I shall not forget her; 

Nor need she give editors chances to whoop up the people. 

If I see not my flag every day, still my love shall not weaken; 

If I see it not daily afloat, I shall shiver no timbers. 

This is excursive, invasive, incisive, melodious; 

An impartial refrain of a turpial vocal in ethnics; 

Prize songbird that from the equator chants of equation 

As a political rule for lifting equality. 

19. 

No hacer el primero paso, porque es aquello que cuesta. 
Are you tied to a foreign leader or bound by your judgment? 
Is it even whether you follow by will or compulsion? 
Shall the world be open, or all be dragooned to one system 
By the gentry of chance in political conclave fortuitous, 

24 



And forego Asiatic commerce to placate exclusives? 
I refer to the rights of all states, not of any one solus. 
Nor is Asia the only continent in my vision. 
Canje leal debe ser el mote de todos. 

Mr. Canning's doctrine, which Mr. Monroe put his name to, 
Does not mean, and it cannot, the circumscription of commerce, 
Nor of the right to alter political formulas. 
Nor of organic rights in all sovereign peoples: 
So told me some Presidents of some southern republics 
Who deplored the political overreaching of Canning, 
Rut who take either side, according to whence come the menace. 
However, freedom with Europe, as well as from Europe, 
Independent autonomy, sovereign in choosing relations 
With continents ocean-united, I found was the preference 
Of Presidents Lerdo, Canal, Paez, Nuiiez, Soteldo. 
I made several trips to examine these things with devotion. 
Britain is, after all, alone among nations consistent. 
By avowal imperial, commercial and free, what is lacking? 
Her premises vast, her logic is true to them strictly, 
Till her moral command renders all explanation superfluous. 
Not one nation antagonized at any point anywhere, 
Except those who object to both open doors and free commerce, 
Insisting on spheres of influence as a substitute. 
This example cann.ot be crushed while the moral law governs. 
And asks not your imitation, but that you surpass it. 
She will never be slow to follow a lead for the better. 
And is waiting, I guess, for her best friend to show her the way to it. 
Before taking arms to defend either one or more nations 
Against no attack, one might well ask a few minor peoples 
Si quieren la aliancia de un amigo forzoso 
Que no reconoce derechos porque poderoso. 
Overbearing friend is the most insidious of foemen. 
Acquiring by trespass that which the honest foe fights for: 
Often done ir the name oi the Cross for the profits of Cortez. 
Lei us establish a tribune ol secular honor 
F or material aftairs, with religion put by for salvation. 

2b 



Study secular honor before you object to this program. 

Let a court of honor be formed to decide for all nations 

Not only the law but the equity of all causes, 

Holding war on a level no higher than that of mere murder, 

As a strictly preventible crime, and therefore more heinous. 

Impractical? So was all order till some one achieved it. 

Proverbially, Muscovite policy never was open 

As to doors or the ways of shutting them; but the Emperor 

Nicholas Second may set my court of honor in practice 

As soon as he quits arming Russia more largely than ever. 

At the present date or for any time in the future, 

And guarantees to respect present holdings of empires. 

Sine qua non, no advantage while waiting the congress, nor working it. 

The congress of 'Ninety-Nine or of any near decade, 

20. 

Remember the challenge of Baumanoir to Bemborough; 

Thirty a side; it was promptly and proudly accepted. 

The Sixty swang glaives at Oak Midway of Josselin-Ploermel 

And thirty fell prone round its roots and were vanquished in honor. 

Those winners conquered by fighting, not overrushing. 

No small party was stung to defiance by insults and blunders. 

'Twas when civilization was dawning, or maybe just previous. 

No cowardly threat of twenty to one stained that battle. 

'Twas in times mediaeval, when a soldier throve by his daring, 

When man against man in a quarrel was all that was manly. 

Not smeared with the ink of the bully the page of that story. 

To the true warrior the blood of such field would look beautiful. 

21. 

Advise yourself not to disturb the order existent. 
Scarcely any other ofifence has so much of pure blunder. 
Were redemption required again, the returning redeemer 
Would be more than denied in the house of the Pontian successor, 

26 



With emphasis more than of words might be ordered to quit it. 

Would the sons and the daughters of broadcloth and silk change their rain 

Would they see the need of a sermon enforcing new fashion? 

Would a pontifex ride on an ass as a choice from a chariot? 

Treason has many forms, innovation being one of them, 

And is punished in many ways between hemp and starvation. 

This is the tragical act of the patria-comedy. 

22. 

As a class-leader, or otherwise doing the paragon, 

Ee not overmuch righteous for fear of surpassing thy parson 

Or the big local man whom thy borough has lately elected, 

And of setting example up in the place of a sermon. 

The world is not yet wholly ready for dutiful action; 

What would suddenly 'come of the fellows who live by advising, 

Alert in the counsel of all save themselves, and paid for it? 

Make not thyself overwise: why shouldst thou destroy thyself? 

More, profit in being behind than in front of thine epoch; 

Thou canst clip the king's coin of the nobles who squandered for progress. 

More honor in being in front; but what profits the martyr? 

For services rendered to art thou mayst freeze on a corner. 

Let the lights of philosophy drift to the locker of learning 

And then sink the ship at a hundred miles south of Bermuda, 

Seek ease of mind, but not so that the search become effort. 

Read editorials by men at six guineas per fortnight; 

Therefrom thou wilt gather a conflict of many opinions, 

And will deem ease of mind best promoted by ceasing from reading. 

23- 

Republics exist for liberty as a principle 
When it willingly taketh the impress of fixt institutions. 
Bear this in mind when the genius of turbulence prompts you, 
And bear it in mind that in this the republics are justified. 
Though self-contradictions crop out as to some other issues. 

27 



The republican view of freedom is fixt, not expansive, 

Though your true devotee will swear fixity is expansive 

If his politicians may only fix rigs on the people. 

When these get their republic established, it stays there forever, 

Going on like a wheel in the air on a permanent axis 

For the sons of rotation in ofifice who prate of the progress 

Of the wheel in the air that insures them rotation in office. 

Dare suggest that the wheel might roll on to an equalized fortune. 

And the sons of rotation in office are sharp to shout treason. 

Foreign war puts a stress unexpected on fixt constitutions; 

The obstacular clauses require an immense explanation, 

But manifest destiny helps the defects in the logic. 

And may even furnish them forth with a hundred amendments; 

And Senator Hoar may earn place with the fathers in story 

Of what was to be at the founding, but not for the future. 

But our nature cannot be changed by political raving. 

Flumanitarian fixt bayonets frequently fix it all. 

Ethnic conditions are strong in upheaval of theories 

When the same are not built on the evolution of principles. 

They neutralize the ideals of Theodore Parker, 

Of Channing, and others the half-gods of inexperience. 

Those lofty conceptions of half-gods who should have been full-gods, 

Round-shouldered, they, by the weight of reforming the universe. 

But who missed the correct conception of democrat mission, 

Immortal in splendid isolation of error. 

Yet some stumpers pretend to eliminate the discrepancies 

Between the philosophers and the facts of the decade, 

As: We see things exactly alike unless where we differ; 

Yet the difference is merely in name, though it strenuously sunders. 

I am on your side in the argument, but can't see it 

Unless as a Jesuit point, like Lothair at Mentana. 

Thaumaturgical metamorphosis has its value 

In reversing conditions when no other means can explain them. 

Are kings better? No; but their banners bear different devices; 

They have never been starred with the claims and the aims of republics. 

Kings pretend to lick savages for the good of all nations 

28 



And to take the chances of Hcking from them and their allies, 
Their civilized allies envious of us, for example 

Of fortune, and who damn us for w^inning the things they are seeking. 
Inherited status, not wider life economic. 

Was a commonwealth's pride; all it knew was known to the foredads, 
Their long heads lucky at length in the luck that seems judgment; 
That is, they were helped to success by the chance that makes merit, 
Good men and great for their time, and I honor them deeply, 
But it was not their mission to tether a state to an epoch. 
In our "Ninety-Three Dupuy quotes the French revolution. 
Which seems to be still on tap for both sides of all questions. 
The inventor of figures of speech is the patriot and statesman. 
Though, like sons of a pope, all questions for such have been answered. 
A few phrases carry a measure, and thinking comes later. 
If the ins seek aggression, the outs double quick to outmarch them 
In gross rivalry ; > do wrong for the good of the country. 
The wrong party on top dragoons the good sense of the people 
And their morals, and makes them do wrong for the patria-gloria. 
And pay for the splendor through ten generations of taxes 
In total and limited monarchies as in republics. 
No people more sensitive to the bomb of the anarch 
Than democrats, nor quicker to quake at his dogma; 
A deeply significant fact, and much in their favor. 
Yet questions are economic, no longer political. 
Indeed, it is time to economize on the politics. 
Even if economics should wrestle with no other symptom. 
If mere massive voting may cure this, why does the cufe lag? 
Men have met death there in proof of their dissatisfaction. 
Is the plutocrat using democracy as an autocrat. 
As a vision of freedom materialized for the despot. 
The multiplied citizen tyrant, not the king single? 
Any sort of system could promise or chat of the future. 
If it do not build for itself, can it build for the future? 
You are held to the boast of the past, not the vaunt of intention. 
Political detachment is not independence 
In inimical sense; noblesse oblige outside of politics, 

29 



And from this the mere cut of political bond cannot free you. 

Good faith cannot die Avhere noblesse oblige is the touchstone. 

As it cannot exist where one flaunts the pride-tiag- of its absence. 

Who could imagine the step from Mount Vernon to Tammany? 

Who can foretell the volte-face the fresh era may order? 

A league for the preservation of free institutions 

Might be met by a counter-league for their pontiiication. 

And a nation within one might set up its church for its politics; 

Other tribe tlian the ]\Iormon may swell in an amplified Utah. 

Let nobody wind himself up for debate automobile 

Nor otherwise tire himself out; I am only suggesting. 

My assertions are merely affirmative forms of the query, 

Wliile my interrogatives offer occasion to crush me. 

Whether you know this or not, take occasion to ponder. 

Any nation gp-ows weary in time of the noise of a people 

In chronic complaint, unwilling to take the world's chances 

'Mid denominations of one or in many religions; 

Following, not leading; struggling ever for special favors, 

Favors not asked by the others and due to no section. 

Something weak and wrong in a race always crying for sympathy 

Alike in the prosperous hills and the desolate valleys. 

And forever encroaching on government fovmded by others. 

An unpioneer yet may win by devotion to winning. 

In liberty there is more than the mere tu dixisti. 

Because we must labor to keep as we travailed to earn it. 

If you use the past as a platft)rm to boast of the future, 

jMaking also tlie present a stump speech of that which is coming, 

If you keep on intending forever, where will it land you? 

All my questions are hypothetical; no concrete purpose. 

Irrterrogation amuses, and I know but few things. 

Yet from what I might foretell am deterred by the stones of Saint Stephen. 



24. 

Washington did not labor to found a tramp's paradise. 
The foreign bondmen of fate who are otherwise freemen 

30 



Mistake in prescribing the duty of Washington's country 
As that of predestined absorber of every crank-theory 
Uneasily radiated by prophets of failure. 
Yet we with that land would associate intenser persistence 
In scopes more ambitious, in truths more far-reaching and clearer. 
The jealous rage of the democrat spurned foreign comment 
Till the democrat swelled, like the monarchist, into expansion. 
Then it came to pass that a criticism was not an insult. 
We are all on an equal level now, each being superior 
In his own esteem to all others, for which I esteem him. 
I am seeking not to hurt feelings, and ask your opinion. 
Recall the instance of Lowell, the gifted, lamented. 
Britain gave him cold credit for doing his manifest duty. 
Thereat he fell foul of the Fenii, who called him a poet. 
When his party adopted their stigma and left him an outcast. 
He Vvas right for the chosen few; but too few chose to vote for him. 
What a pity plain life and high thought went under with Emerson! 
But this is a verity whose point pricks all systems. 
Constitutional innovation came hard and tardy 
Till a world-wide event broke the tyranny of script-limits. 
A stump speech is this, but not specially fierce against monarchy. 
A demagogue's epigram w^as a platform for statesmen 
Until somebody said that the great needed not be the narrow. 
He W'ho opposed the shut door and the feudalist finance 
Was bid stand on his head as a sign that his feet were the wiser. 
Inimical premises seemed to serve friendly conclusions 
In the latest twist of the logic of fresh politicians. 
Who twisted the lion's tail as part of the premises. 

A cheap hit on cheap coats w^as prolonged for the blessings of dearness. 
John Bull's horns became locked with those of the favorite dilemma 
Of how not to grow lesser himself while another grew bigger. 
But Thaumas, as agent of Neptune, whispered the President 
And enchanted isles in two oceans dazzled the people. 
Manifest destiny supplying the constitutional warrant. 
Avalanche voting is either majestic or nothing, 
Since it proves satisfaction both ways, as well as the avalanche; 

31 



The majority happy to win; the others at voting. 

Successes of statesmen run not with their efforts in ratio, 

Even among easy equals; yet am I not pessimistic. 

The world is not lacking in genius; 'tis rather too full of it. 

But that which is wanted is not a relapse into dullness, 

But one big enough to employ all the others at profit; 

A genius Promethean not only in range but in drive-power. 

With him we should tumble over one another in paradise. 

On our planet transformed into paradise by this genius. 

I here reaffirm the most sacred rights of all equals 

From the North Pole to Cape Horn and from Athens to Stockholm, 

And that no one is wrong because each prefers his own system. 

25- 

I am some things out of office; among them an editor. 
Civilization is not editorial per se, but by incident; 
Whether the civilization be normal or crazy 
Depends on the fellows who shovel the type in the columns. 
If you wish him to win, put civilization forward 
As the ace of trumps, and glorify him for high playing. 
Augmenting your ethical bet as his vis-a-vis loses. 
On the enemy's losses the ethics depend, and your winnings. 
If you cannot trade with his foe, spoil the trade of the others; 
Make it seem baser than once was your share in the slave-dhows. 
Fight not for the open door unless you may be porter. 
Though his trade may not drip to your bucket, another has lost it. 
And that is your gain in the opportune ethics of nations. 
Mere passive selfishness goes for success in our epoch. 
Why? Because you may find what I lose, though it roll down a culvert. 
I have lost; bide your time; you do not know w^here you may seek yet; 
(This is not a proud age; and industria has no superbia. 
That Japan should be lucky proves nothing of civilization; 
Nothing for nor against the system Japan is upholding, 
But that Japan is ahead for the time in equipment. 
And knew how to do at her own cost the business of Russia. 

32 



I respect Japan, and her industry, history and people; 
But, playfully speaking, she furnished the world a grave lesson: 
Which is, that an ancient race with new luck is a schoolboy, 
Wild in vacation days and missing his master, 
And offering new proof of the need of Great Britain in India. 
Lord Rosebery said that the war should be stopped ere it started ; 
No single instance I find of more statesmanlike foresight, 
For no nation ever defeated itself as Japan did. 
It was exactly the same with the Roman and Briton. 
Superior warlike equipment explains the old Roman. 
In our era not even Julius the puffed could invade us. 
Superior equipment will keep us the Roman advantage; 
The lack of it will put some new Roman on top of us. 
Strange that this fact appears not to the literary liberals. 
Foreign rivalry always confronts and sometimes afifronts us; 
Yet the penmen in Parliament always taboo this condition. 
If Japan had the cannon-ball mission to civilize China, 
Why has not Britain the same over any inferior, 
Or the States to teach law of all kinds to the vicious and sunken. 
To transplant into Asia the carpetbag system and statesmen? 
Let us praise wisely all 'round, not in status of stultus. 
The great future victor will be the disclaimant of conquest; 
The States may not know this to-day, though they yet will give proof of it 
In the moral, not physical, bigness of manifest destiny. 
All other conditions being equal, numbers are winners; 
But a far greater victory than theirs is the triumph of causes. 
On that base have I fought all my wars, by the pen or the sabre. 
And I proudly fell back on my cause when the hordes were too pushing. 
China might have wiped out Japan in a new generation 
If a Japanese act had not given naval chances to Russia 
To look on Japan as a toy or a sarcasm in empire. 
Yet that again would prove nothing of civilization; 
Rather the other, all militarism being savage 
And of itself proving civilization a forgery. 
I am strong on the moral bigness of manifest destiny; 
Soldiers are needed now on the physical side of it, 

33 



I admit; but even Jesus used force in persuading the usurers. 

Japan attacked China simply because she was ready 

And China was not, and that you call civilization; 

In its moral side manifest destiny did not appear there. 

Chauncey says that God always keeps some man in training for purpose. 

And I deem the same God quite as oft keeps a rod in the pickle 

For the nations that praise themselves more than their Bibles may warrant. 

Solid virtues still survive in the sons of Confucius, 

Despite prejudice, falsehood, antagonism and, 'verting. 

The moral is, 'mid the din of competitive war-whoops, 

Clarify the newspaper mind, and do not confound things. 

A stump speech upon editors, Japanese and Mongolians 

Is just as legitimate as critique editorial. 

If too many cooks spoil the broth, too many colossi 

Of hostile intelligence ruin the public conception 

Not alone of Asian afifairs, but among all the nations. 

Wiser the fool than the King when he called down the great Macedonian. 



26. 



Remember these problems are waiting the ethnic solution, 
Not one of gas optimistic nor partisan trickery. 
Nor by blasts recurrent of fun at the ways of your neighbor, 
And that trying to force it by war should invoke your extinction, 
Since in ethnics and ethics it proves that the lesser is beaten. 
That the strong party wins irrespective of other conditions; 
A horde 'gainst a few, or a few with the arms of precision, 
Grave moral reasons being later evolved for the triumph. 
Mais la politique du frellon est toujours detestable. 
La France, to be truly at ease, needs an object of hatred; 
Britain, Germany, Italy, each has in turn been this object; 
It is in the blood of the race, and must always be reckoned with. 
And some day will be likely to lead to an isolation not splendid. 
This will be when Russia shall cease to be idol in irony. 

34 



27. 

Let no nation seek a menagerie in arbitration. 
This book is composed for the thinker, not for the partisan, 
Unless for the partisan of the element comic, 
Which inheres in all purposes artificially serious. 
But any new thought is better than ossification 
Of morals and mind in the temple of patriot-fetich 
Preaching fixity, ne plus ultra of those who are lucky. 
Ponder hereby, and later explain me some causes. 
Why should despotism produce heroes and liberty squabblers 
Till tyranny seems less disgraceful and easier than freedom? 
Is freedom another guise of the substance of tyranny, 
A name, an incitement, a hope to cajole the unlucky, 
To make minority acquiesce in the sovereignty 
Of majority taking the place of the personal monarch? 
Some hordes are the threat of the civilization that feeds them, 
Reconcentrados of freedom living on charity, 

And may need a new breed of heroes to cut short their squabbling. 
God pardon the heroes who founded the chance for their purpose! 
No others so rasp up the ages with egoist graspings. 
I call you again: why is this? Because the beneficiaries 
Are always unworthy the martyrs, and lapse from their standards. 
Despotism develops the man, and freedom the loiterer; 
The more shouty the freedom, the more numerous he, and offensive, 
Till degraded enough to need saving, and then comes the hero 
To lift him; the martyr, a wasted political Jesus. 
The sword carves out virtue ; the plow turns the furrows of fatwit ; 
Even fixt institutions should try to accept some new premises. 
But I fill not with wind either horn of this giant dilemma 
Lest my sound-swell of satire inundate a nation's tympanies. 
While my aim is to tickle, not to derange its acoustics. 
Verbum sap : either civilization is wrong or the menace. 
Learn the purpose of those whom you patronize ere you sympathize. 
For partisan vote-gain you egg them to do in our household 
What you seek to prevent them doing in yours. Is that wisdom? 

35 



Are you not thus facilitating their purpose to beat you 
By misuse of your forms in politics and religion? 

28. 

The country that takes automatic care of its statesmen 

Finds all of them equals in chronic political picnic, 

Senators Hoar and Raines with Webster, Clay, Pitt or Gladstone 

In a national ball, a political spree, a fun-circle 

Where the unexpected bob up to be merry with greatness, 

Where a Prescott is elbowed aside by a Mig or embezzler. 

The nation that guards its great heads with a care automatic 

Deems them political wards, and so they are funmen. 

Do you object to my terms ? They were taught by your gentry. 

Call them whatever you please, they were learned from your tories, 

29. 

When a public work must cost more than a few thousand guineas 
There is always a fund, if you know it or not, for corruption. 
The unredeemed are corrupt wheresoever you find them. 
But are strongest, of course, in the nations least prone to redemption: 
A platitude this, both self-evident and Pecksniffian, 
Worthy peregrine parson rather than secular poet. 
My terms are general, I vow; no particular reference. 
But as Her Majesty's Fool on the stump of a hickory, 
Into this brief speech I infuse a dash of the puritan. 
The most serious of men, yet who taketh himself much too seriously. 
And giveth a species of comic psalm tone unto patriotism. 
The moral is: Better the world is without such improvement. 
Since the phrase modern methods atones not for principles fractured. 
The Panama scandal almost baffled conception 
As it trailed with a smirch and smear over certain republics, 
And it poisons true hope of the citizen in his country; 
Though the heroism of the peasants who cast in their hoardings 
At Panama is the glory of Frenchmen forever. 

36 



O patriotism planetary, unique as resplendent! 

Frenchmen courting renown, not counting the cost of the waterway. 

Vast conception of duty was theirs, howso venal the leaders, 

With no Frenchman posing thereat as obstructive behemoth. 

But if you insist on assuming the contrary view of it, 

The foreign-born tribesmen who ruin or rule Manahatta 

Are right about boodle; they merely foresaw the new era. 

30. 

Forepops are good for their time, but not up to the future. 
Every nation has had them; take any for illustration; 
Romulus, Brennus, Caractacus, Horsa and Washington; 
Each a producer as well as a product of epoch, 
And more or less heir and transmitter of civilization. 
No one sets fire to my stump; I am still in good humor. 
All things are outgrown excepting your god and his empire. 
No scheme can be worked for combining progress and fixity. 
The great wall of China surrounded that question forever, 
And the recent joint faith of two nations in manifest destiny 
Finds in China a large object-lesson of justification. 
If the past and your fathers were greater than you and the future, 
You cannot sustain the much nor the little bequeathed you. 
Great fathers build not for degenerate children great futures; 
The futures fail as the children fall in the contrast. 
Or in the duties for which destiny had not trained them. 
Magna Charta was great because previously nothing existed, 
A cornerstone to be carefully set by the builder; 
Yet if new cut to-day all England would sneer at its smallness. 
We are proud and glad in this era we have not to lay it; 
That our temple founded thereon has lost none of its beauty. 
That the strength of its age is greater than that of some new ones, 
The political Mecca of aliens as well as of natives, 
A fact due not alone to the cornerstone but the builder. 
Forepops are like Magna Charta, good in their period, 
•But unluckily difficult to transfer to the forward; 

37 



Towers of light in the past wherefrom you may lay your course onward. 

Not dawdle at anchor around them Hke pocketbook sailors. 

They are not to be sworn by at present for founding a czardom 

Unless you endow them with purposes not in their records. 

Rather go back and work up like the antique beforemen. 

Freedom means freedom to judge of the fabric of freedom, 

And not that you force upon equals your notions about it. 

If equality be the just law, to aspire would be selfish. 

Gladstone said inequality is the law of Great Britain, 

But his God created superior and inferior; 

I prefer the work of his God to his phrase of misleading. 

And manifest destiny cannot exist among equals. 

Unless as forbidding divergence of scopes with inferiors. 

Can you hear on the outer circle the truths I am shouting? 

For patriotism pufifed, what private lines reek with your meanness ? 

Can you earn a bowl of pea-soup at some other profession? 

When will your fellows evolve beyond need of your ranting? 

Why should we not be matriots instead of patriots ? 

Civilization would perish unless for the women, 

And motherland would seem much less gory and gentler. 

31- 

Let us now freely speak to some state in imagination. 
You begin your political system with no propaganda; 
You disclaim the idea as antagonistic to freedom. 
Chance makes it successful, and then you are all propagandists 
Where chance took you one way and evolution the other. 
Feigning faith perfect as means of ignoring its failures. 
The rights which at first were inherent lapse into prescription. 
Where two, three or five are gathered together in freename, 
The major number debate of the meaning of freedom 
Till the minor come in, when they force upon them their conclusion. 
These freemen, you see, are persuaded to faith by compulsion. 
Their fellows presenting a garland of peace on a bayonet. 
Adorning liberty thus while appeasing the despot. 

38 



Propaganda involves all dominion: are you a democrat, 

Scientist, socialist, communist, anarchist, monarchist. 

Altruist, egotist, shopkeeper. Christian, or heathen? 

It makes you no difference according to propaganda 

Unless whether you lose your own head or cut off another's: 

Therefore stay strong if you be, or get strength if you lack it; 

For if the loser turn winner, your head pays your crusade ; 

The Danubian Stambuloff being a striking example. 

It is nothing but preach, if you think; no such thing as a principle, 

But compromise, a sort of burglar on principle. 

Whosoe'er is on top, all politics end in orations, 

And each best propagandist sets up in his turn his own system. 

As Pontifex, Artifex, Anarch, Freethinker, Don'tknowit, 

And freeman who finds a free lunch with five cents' worth of lager. 

Will you ever arise to the right irrespective of jargon 

Dexterously used with the sinister scope of defeating. 

I am waiting the plan of John Him who sneered at finality. 

He would work a great empire by shifty anticipations 

Until it should drift into colonies through orations. 

God send us once more a great man to reorganize chaos 

And give freedom a chance with the men who are up in its ethics. 

In the reciprocal duties of freemen and empire. 

Or my States will run manifest destiny counting us out of it. 

All this is inspired by the ghosts of Will Somers and Gwynplaine. 

32. 

There is no such thing as merit per se; what is called such 

Is the figment illusive of euphemistic persuasion. 

And to stuff the imagination you simply keep talking. 

If you can afford to parlar for a few generations, 

Providing relays as the talkmen expire on the platforms. 

Mankind, muddled and wearied, at last will believe in your forepops. 

Because faith costs less effort than ever recurrent denial. 

This applies to the men known as big, whether local or national, 

Who may be republicans, dromios, nihilists, autocrats. 



Yet will I admit the true virtue of some of your forepops, 

But why did you bunch without sorting the true and the bogus? 

The man at your door of Walhalla is much too indulgent, 

And his lack of discrimination discourages gravely, 

For he seateth a hippodrome clown in the chair meant for Bismarck. 

If a man had one virtue it does not imply he had twenty; 

Self-denial frequently means you care nothing about it. 

And your victory was due to the rain in your enemy's powder; 

Not the less you are hero, and vulgar enough to accept it. 

1 am wary of him of one virtue and no seeming vices; 

And a foredad in chief may be distanced by greater successor 

If you tie not the present and future to fetich pasado. 

33- 

A fashion-free woman being loftier than man and less sordid, 

Some good mother should destine her boy to great age and experience. 

That he write a new testament simply of secular honor, 

Not to supplant but to supplement that of salvation, 

Teaching nations professedly Christian to keep the plain promise, 

And. that spreaders of faith shall not flourish the secular sabre. 

As not long ago some of them did in the Saccharine Islands, 

Where a sweeter belief is attached to one easier than Jesus. 

34- 

Take oflf your hat and quit wagging the member unruly! 
This is a man who annihilates western conception, 
And probably all European, of what is a patriot. 
A son of Japan) is my theme, one of honors peculiar. 
I am sad that his name was too humble to come by the cable 
And his deed too heroic for newspaper comment by aliens. 
No love of his flag with a vote of supply to sustain it, 
No beak for a subsidy, marked out this son of the Orient. 
He published a pamphlet illustrating Russian aggression 
And died by his hand in the act of proclaiming the peril, 

40 



With his blood to the letter sealing his love and his mission, 

Destroying himself to dissipate bummer ideals. 

I can almost hear the ghost of Demosthenes praise him 

In paean of patriot, in fiercer philippic of despot. 

Must he glide to the shades with the pietistic Ephesian 

Who builded the dome, and not live with the demon who burned it. 

This tawny Titan who dared to eclipse Cincinnatus, 

This reborn Asiatic outshining the glory of Europe, 

Farther Orient projecting the glow of more radiant Eothen? 

35. 

Fill in as you go, and file out when your space becomes crowded. 
They who square the square miles to the people find no serious trouble; 
Proof again economics settle political problems. 
Unless where some fool not a courtier reverses the order. 
Hundreds of prairies are things full of luck for their owners, 
But not necessarily section of any pan-system, 
Or system of panning out praise in behalf of some theory, 
And while the system is lucky in having the prairies, 
They do not contribute a cubic inch to its greatness 
Which they would not give any other founded on prairies. 
No system better than Britain's on prairies Canadian; 
No prairies are richer, irrespective of system; 
Richer per caput of population in figures 
Applied to five millions of people, or two hundred millions. 
And the prairies of water, the seas, they are part of pan-system 
Quite as important in politics as in commerce. 
And which some day will overflow, undertow tarifif-jcybbers. 
Let us deem government wholly a matter of science 
Dissociated forever from lucky conditions; 
As adapted to race, and as circumstances require it; 
As a thing not perforce related to any condition 
Good, bad or indifferent, excepting as needs may determine. 
This is the larger acceptance of manifest destiny, 
-And will save us from errors serious, foolish and costly, 

41 



WRile substituting the economic best for all politics, 

WTiile ceasing to mingle the means with the end in our purpose.. 

These platitudes are the axioms of free constitutions; 

I air them to-day as a pleasant and timely reminder 

To those who in making pan-systems set Pan up for nothing. 

36. 

A thousand millions in foreign wilderness railways 
Have raised many millionaires up out of syndicate plunder 
Who otherwise would have staid in the sphere they were born to. 
The roads cannot pay four per cent, on one-half of the money. 
Independence is best when the rest is not somebody else's. 
Let him who would boast think whence came his original pride-stock 
And remember the aid of the friends without whom he could boast not. 
Independence deceives us; the law should be interdependence. 
Are we the children of light or the children of lightness? 
Genii compete when at best; keep that in conspectu, 
The genii of races as well as of individuals, 
But not, when at best, in a rage to the point of efifacement. 
Sell to Britain steel rails lower priced than the British can roll for, 
But charge not your countrymen triple to help set this deal up; 
They should not be taxed to stop Britishers earning a living. 
If trusts in a nation be good, why not between nations. 
With none of them left in the cold of mere freedom of commerce? 
Why not uniformly tariff the globe to raise prices 
And keep them where every man shall be worth just a million 
Till the millionaire willing to work shall absorb his who idles. 
Instead of maintaining armies and navies for spoiling 
The goods whereupon we have just raised the values by tariff? 
I confess that I wish to be rich, and would like to see you so. 
My enjoyment is more when I know you will not need a favor. 
Beni le genie de chaque peuple au bien de tout peuple! 
Shoot the maxim around the planet by cable in Gallic! 
Romulus grew to Ouirinus for founding an empire. 
Shall nations be bred, or forever ignore private breeding? 

42 



Idolater Romulus opened some doors as a builder, 

Or indirectly created some ports as a founder; 

Quirinus the idol eternized has never shut either. 

Is commonwealth merely another name for the customs? 

Your duty is first to yourself, but so very absorbing 

That you find neither morals nor time for the same to your neighbor;. 

Wherein I see not that it differs from that of rhinoceros. 

In the end, however, the moral law may be practicable 

And the individual genii of peoples respected 

In spite of inspectors of customs and tinkers of tariffs, 

Thus revivifying the fame of the Boston reformers. 

The captains of statesmanship always detest revolution, 

As the rebel who wins is the quickest to shout against treason; 

It is mutiny, and breaks up the trick of their steering. 

Therefore they keep on good terms, so to speak, with the chaplains, 

Who govern by moral law with a physical supplements 

You see, the mass of all peoples belong to some churches, 

To denominations in name, howso easy their morals. 

Thus the captains get aid from the chaplains in ruling the 'tweendecks^ 

Whose fighting-men are a section drawn from the masses. 

The church-and-tax-paying majority call for placation; 

To appease them state-villains sometimes appear faithful to Jesus, 

Chiefs or ministers who must rule, but would keep down the taxes. 

Obedience of subjects goes not with defiance political; 

So that these captains try to deal gently with subjects 

As being the less costly means of attaining their purpose. 

They are willing to take any perch in the coop of consistency. 

Which frequently gives them a roost inconsistent and awkward. 

It was my court-observation that taught me these secrets. 

38. 

Would you abolish the merchant to set up the mill-lord? 

The merchant, the man who takes risks of both courage and judgment,. 

43 



The pioneer at his own expense of new markets, 

The Lord High Admiral of capital used between peoples, 

And fill the land with corporations and salary chasers, 

Every man cutting and pinching to live somewhat lower. 

Seeking recommendation of cheapness rather than talents. 

Individual enterprise dead; men liars, hypocrites, flunkies. 

And all tO' support what you dub modern methods in business? 

Modern is nothing per se, more than mere antiquation; 

The best is not sure till experience hath sat on its value. 

When the consumer buyeth direct from the maker 

The latter man addeth on more than the middle man's profit; 

He knoweth his game, and would be a darn fool not to play it. 

Thus he knocketh a class out of living and payeth more for it, 

Class and mass thereby castellating the few more securely. 

This is one of the sharpest points in the system of Dingley, 

Though his henchmen would swear that the prosperous were never so 

numerous, 
Thus ignoring by general averment a charge made specific, 
Very much in the style of a speech by professional exile. 
With the customs-tax to the working capital added. 
And the interest on that, what is saved by destroying the merchant? 
And women? Are they to be jostled like men 'round a prizering 
In the competition of earning enough for starvation 
Because another is waiting the shoes of the starveling, 
Or, refusing to starve, make a break for high life without conscience ? 
No, not all of them yet; they are still very faithful to morals, 
And since they cannot escape having men for their fathers, 
The fact that they have so much virtue is somewhat surprising. 
Would you drive your inhabitants into the mill by the million, 
Leaving them free, but to be either serfs or shareholders ? 
'T would be good for the Pluti; that is, till the social upheaval 
That would make the French revolution look like a picnic; 
For the next will be economic without politicians. 
They rejected as being for such festival unfit companions. 
AH this is not serious at all; merely serio-comic, 
Like municipal government according to Tammany. 

44 



39- 

Now let us investigate the trick of discovery 

As related to novel experiments sound or defiant. 

Would you open a show for the sale of prohibited articles? 

Columbus was Latin, a tough enough man in his purpose, 

And illumined when forethought and far-sight were swaddled in mourning^ 

A worker well worthy his hire in a sour-grape vineyard. 

Court-fool of an outraged volition with menials and dunces, 

And I know not how little, or much, friend of Latin and Vandal, 

Since the net result of his cruises enlarged double chances; 

But if living be good, let us thank him in spite of the offsets. 

The West of one nation said much of him: what did it do for him. 

For Columbus, rewarded with chains and blood-poisoned with sorrow? 

Did Chicago send him On High as Ouirinus of Commerce, 

Columbus, surpassing Romulus far as a founder. 

Demigod as ambassador to the gods of progression, 

Or pose him as Cock of High Winds in a new destination, 

Borrowed genius of giant bazaar and ironic of statute? 

Columbus, who not only gave to old Spain a new empire. 

But homes they would otherwise lack to the sons of all races; 

Seeking room for new Romans in spite of pontifical dicta; 

Regent of Hope and bestower of millions of homesteads; 

Whose expanded heart beat for room for the heart of the future ; 

Poet whose genius prefigured a sphere and then found it, 

But whose theme was too vast for expression in short or long metre; 

The bard who delivered two continents from his vision; 

Who discovered the lot for the church where a parson condemned him; 

Old sailor whose inspiration was due to his calling: 

In formulated ideal no other can touch him 

Who foresaw the dorado of fact in a luminous frenzy; 

Transparent and pained where the prophets were opaque and happy. 

Where the statesmen were safe who say no to all new pro^positions, 

Where the priest, who knows heaven, smiled a doubt for his faith in a 

hemisphere. 
Thus offering a lustrous example of dogma infallible; 

45 



'Where the fool was the woman who bought with her jewels the honor 
Against the advice of king, noble, priest, statesman and pilot 
Who all knew like a pope, but could not imagine beyond him. 

40. 

I love thee well, Isabel of the middle ages 

In the midst whereof centred thy radius of spheric expansion, 

De la iglesia hija real y reyna excelsa. 

Thy sweet genius unstifled by genius of double negation; 

Whose intuition outpeered a whole realm of intelligence 

And cathedral full of cardinals shaking their noddles, 

Averring that if God had made it the church must have known it : 

Not sharing the cost, but singly thou tookest the venture 

For thine own crown. Queen regnant and radiant of Castile; 

The one human being with faith in the man and his mission, 

Who by pawning a crown won a continental Golconda 

And a fame like no man's ; a renown which even Julius might envy. 

Sole friend of the greatest secular son of the centuries. 

By thy side are vague dreamers all others from Homer to Bryant, 

Almirante Colon, with thy measureless gifts to the future 

As discoverer, sailor and poet of giant conception. 

Manacled victim of ingrates enriched by thy science. 

41. 

Colon! campeon de geografia ignota, 
Incluyendo mismo el sitio de dicha Chicago, 
No excluyendo tampoco al de su aduana. 

42. 

Nelle lingue Latine dovute. Latino, t'invoco, 
Colombo, per bene compiangerti I'ultima sorte. 
Come quella che termino a Valladolid. e indegna. 
Genio di barriera di sponde li sarai sempre. 

46 



I benemeriti che muojono senza compenso, 

Di principio anelando la cognizione morale, 

Dovrebbero trovar da' benefiziarii loro 

i'apoteosi del diritto se non della gloria; 

Ma si tarda puranche quella che ti fara la giustizia, 

Tu mondano prediletto, erede degli ingrati, 

Sommo unico per la pazienza e per lo slancio, 

Padre emisferico d'una pesante posterita nordica 

Che ti bilancia fra '1 destin di Quirino e di girantola, 

O che t'istalla al lago doganiere canonizzato! 

Tu santo della dogana! sei orgoglioso del range, 

Deir onor continental nel quinto secolo tuo? 

Cercator d'altri posti e scopertitor incidentale 

D'isole ben ricche inalzandosi dal mare, 

Di tesor miaggiori e non lontano araldi ! 

Caro Nume di lungo raggio e penetrante, 

Oggi '1 piu splendido fra quegli ch' han sorvissuto la morte; 

Intrepid' ammiraglio d'una flotta fragile come gloriosa, 

Assai poco stimato fra le lodi di stolti millioni! 

43. 

Hay unos que dicen hoy que Colon era hombre pequeno ; 
Concepcion salvaje y envidiosa del Norte! 

Y los que lo dicen son encabezados de un clerigO'. 
Son bien menester los pequefios para decirlo, 
Siempre como baldon de Colon la iglesia parece. 
Si Colon era hombre pequefio, quien era grande? 
Quieren siempre aprovecharse sin palabra de gracia? 
No solo es glorioso su descubrimiento, 

Sino, y mas, su tino antes de su hazafia. 
Puede ser que la raza Latina no es la mas grande; 
Pero el hombre que sea el mas importante del mundo 
Era Latino, com.o tambien el ayuda indispensable 
De la poderosa amiga la buena reyna Isabel. 

Y yo que lo digo no soy de nada Latino. 

47 



44- 

Slow paupers by hoard, swift and rich in the passion of avarice. 

To the earher craving for gold adding new rage for silver 

Were the people that peopled the land of thy find, O Columbus, 

And the children improve on the will-force and brains of the fathers.. 

Honest refugee, outcast and outlaw are honied on one level, 

On a bet that all things will adjust themselves in the ultimate, 

Regardful of only such law as the process develops. 

Where is God in this matter? He simply produced its Columbus. 

O Latin friend of white Indians supplanting the red ones, 

True dreamer on strand and on quarter-deck, where had their homes been. 

Hadst thou remained Mediterranean son of the boucans? 

Some honors befell with thy landfall ; yet wast thou discoverer 

Of new proof that the nature of man is unequal to fortune, 

That prosperity makes him invent on the side of the demons, 

This son of vicissitude coldly denying his mother, 

In his luck coldly shaking his brothers as bastards of destiny. 

What obligated thy followers to steal their possessions? 

Do civilized morals thrive on a theft continental? 

The grandees of thine epoch were thinkers of desperation 

Who tried to dissuade thee from seeking out homes for the desperate. 

Who should be shipped to new spheres, not reformed in the old ones. 

Could Europe have carried them all hadst thou missed their last paradise? 

'Twas an easy preach in those days for the church-fed and court-fed, 

While the unfed were waiting a church and a court that would feed them^ 

Will the sons of proud parents be fair with the fame of their fathers. 

Or smash me. the jester, for smashing their fraudulent saintdom 

Amid the- rush of pretense and pretensions for thee named. 

Thou Admiral of theLandfall of Homes, O Columbus? 

Thou sport of a hope seeking one thing and finding another, 

But nevertheless in ideas a son of high science. 

45. 

Almirante Colon, thy seven years of solicitation. 
The tolerated schemer of corridors royal 

48 



Who could tolerate for thy purpose the laugh parasitic; 

Eating the heart of rebuff with the smile of the patient, 

The smile of the virtue that lives with the slave and the titan, 

Had made thee great man hadst thou died of a seven-years' fever. 

And had spared from the human renown the indelible scandal 

Which led into Cadiz and V'alladolid and thy sorrow; 

To that grief which seems ever proportioned to greatness of service 

And ever corroding his spirit whose service is greatest, 

Whereof thine was in magnitude up to thy prize hemispheric, 

Adding land to the knowledge of fire, thou Prometheus of Waters! 

46. 

Guanahani is Watling now ; three times sailed I thither ; 
A British islet of seven hundred people and pineapples 
Where Britain should build thee a tower which should dAvarf that of Paris^ 
With a radius of light one segment whereof should touch Cuba, 
A star of utility crowning the fane of thy grandeur. 
From thy point of discovery Anglia hailing Hispania, 
The colonial nations joining with light their dominions 
And into manifest destiny putting new radiance. 
Bremner and I on the spot where they grew ate two pineapples 
On the spot where with sword, cross and flag thou annexed'st the natives^ 
Or was it Atwood Cay, which I passed in the Alps, Captain Williams, 
Lost in a hurricane later commanding the Alvo; 
Brave David and skillful, well worthy the pride of the Welshmen! 
Forty decades are still on the ocean reseeking thy landfall. 
What now say those Indios of Guanahani to thy landing? 
In the sphere where ye dwell, in some isle of pineapples immortal, 
Do they bow to thy right of proclaiming thy sovereigns and Saviour? 
Or with Charley the Second's freelooter Knight do they rank thee, 
Don Cristobal de Colon alongside of Sir Henry Morgan, 
Titled by Charles, persiflagitous King of the Britons? 
Siendo igual la sed del botin a Guanahani y a Jamaica. 

49 



47. 

Cristoforo Colombo, who followed the sea for a living; 

Cristobal Colon, butt of courtiers and churchmen Castilian; 

Almirante, Don, tither of all of his realized visions ; 

Then felonized by heads dazed in the blaze of his glory, 

Beating from Hayti to Spain to the windward of envy. 

Chained for long tropic voyage by Bobadilla the minion. 

Having made of the Spaniard the Don of all Western Sea Plunder, 

Thus giving him four hundred years of progressive decadence: 

In these phases of work, shame and splendor his life was included. 

The practical man is God's idiot outside his own practice, 

Narrow chief of conceit that one mastery includes all the others. 

What practical man was ever so' rich as this dreamer, 

O ye millions lacking in metals and meals had his dreams failed? 

Criticism is dyspepsia of the brain, but mine is anhungered, 

For the cocktail of hope or the mince pie of thought always ready; 

Cynicism is perverted enthusiasm; my mind is not twisted; 

Blasphemy is eloquence abnormal, yet am I normal: 

But so mighty a deed bred up not only glory, but satire. 

Since the fun of the sons of Belial plasters the godly 

In the land where analysis seems to fight shy of the problem. 

Much varied truth is all 'round thy career, Italiano! 

And I love thee too well to get left on an inch of the cube of it. 

What was the Trojan treasure to that of Columbus? 

The petty tale of ten years, a square mile, some talenta. 

Caravel and freight-car could carry the lot to Chicago, 

Where the sons of the hustlers would laugh at its value intrinsic 

And marvel at such funny fleshpots and other utensils, 

The unclassic and even irreverend sons of Chicago, 

Who would doubt of their power to attract in the world's exhibition, 

Columbus, terraqueous magician who conjured two continents, 

Trovator incantato di siti per nuove dogane. 

Those Thaumas of wonderlands realized from two oceans! 

50 



48. 

The men who write books praising foreign political systems 
Write for large sales in the countries praised, to make money; 
A legitimate trick, tho' the praised people kindly ignore it. 
And buy up the book which astutely ignores their shortcomings, 
Made for sale among them by James Casuist greedy of money. 
I am often amused at such books and at those whom they flatter, 
As at the Mephisto author serene with his profits. 
The men who write pamphlets which mainly find fun in all systems 
Write for their fun and their readers', and they, too, make money. 
This is a pleasanter trick and perchance a more useful. 
But to write a great book and get nothing would simply be rueful. 
War breaks treaties and copyrights: let us be sure to keep treaties! 

49. 

Does civilization owe most to Columbus or Caxton? 
Between the discoverer and those who made Caxton a printer 
The typos set type for his claims as against the old sailor. 
That is printer's ink on his continents with a vengeance! 
The Caxton-men could not set type there unless for Columbus, 
Who was father of chances for transfer of loyalty also, 
Giving comfort to subjects and kings who delight in the transfer; 
Mutual delight; you would flee, the King would not follow: 
And some of the subjects transferred became fathers of printers, 
Wild with the freedom to print which inspires so much wildness; 
Youth with gold pen dipt in dew, and maturity nowhere. 
For even the old men stay boys in the empires of Eos: 
Those lands of political dawn with the sun ever rising, 
Not noon-seeking; fixt in eternal morning horizon, 
Hadiant of promise and hope too cajoling to ripen; 
Where Judge Goldenrod lays down the golden rule as the statute, 
And every one tries to get every one else to obey it. 
Let the inkmen distribute the type which promotes this discussion, 
That is, after setting for me the type up which prolongs it. 

SI 



Inventors are commonly fathers of neutralized benefits. 
Here I reproduce from the middle ages some pages 
So preserved as to offer the fragrance of foliage autumnal. 
The avalanche daily and weekly of trash from the steampress 
Is more than an offset for all that we get of good reading. 
This is due to deplorable absence of just circumscription, 
To a vicious taste and false judgment inviting such matter; 
A reciprocally reacting vile taste and misjudgment 
Producing low morals, deserving the curb of the statutes. 
Parchment and pen were enough in the grasp of high thinkers, 
Or mere voice, with the character of Demosthenes impelhng, 
Till the low ones should be estopped from debauching the peoples. 
I do not object to free print, but to those fit for no print. 
I am appealing that judgment be founded, not despotism, 
Anil that tyranny flagrant be burned in its typescreeds to ashes. 
Words then would be pondered by prophet and thinker and listener; 
And 'tis time; for the point-of-view view leaves salvation unsettled. 
Salvation saintly or secular, as you prefer it. 
Shout not that this scheme is too slow; the world is too rapid. 
And I wish to recall it from speed back to sense if it may be. 
The speed of express is to me not the highest expression. 
What we look for is life, not the fever of following up chances. 
As we get further away from reform, some reformed things 
Seem much less reformed than we deemed, and reformers less mighty 
And their tasks less important, in view of the substitute evils 
And those which your seer forgot to foresee and provide for. 
Enthusiasm widens a narrow thing to a wonder, 
And the cranks continue to press us into their purpose. 
My attention having been strained by these guns of opinion, 
Shot from star to star as for star-fun, I make this suggestion: 
Invent an inventor whose good may be never perverted: 
That were a famous and useful Utopia for parents 
And a most undeniable chance to be new and original. 
Fine cliildren's mothers and those of great men are my idols. 
And I hope some fine mother's great son will achieve my ideal; 
I should not be held to adore these fine mothers for nothing. 

52 



so. 

Let me distribute some more of the gnosis mediaeval. 

A little trip to the past may round off your angles 

And widen the line of your thought through the present and future. 

Be not proud to take share in false politics or rebellion, 

Since experiment may be unwise and rebellion not needed. 

Accidental successes may sanctify moral misjudgments, 

And that invites punishment, besides later undoing. 

Yet no other mishap quite so dazzles us out of the gospel. 

New worlds would be peopled, no matter what nation might govern, 

With successful preference, of course, for the States or Great Britain; 

Separation adds neither an acre, a bale, nor a gallon. 

And may, indeed, cut you off from a big market centre. 

Nothing of origin Spanish was happier than Cuba 

Till patriot self-seekers roused insurrections repeated; 

But nothing of origin Spanish. can always be happy. 

Since content invites always the Spaniard to new perpetrations: 

It was thus he condemned himself to front chronic rebellion. 

Too perfect to learn, too national to hail a good equal. 

Thus freedom is not in, mere form, but in ethnical fitness. 

And my anthropological States will drum duly the Cubans, 

And sad for that people the day when the States shall let gO' of them! 

Forget not your faults while remembering your virtues as patriot; 

So leave me to deplore my defects and applaud your self-censure. 

Ecoutez au nouveau chanteur, qui vous dechante des anciennes concep 

tions. 
In this song I am bidding for universal approval. 
And would sing like nine muses in one, and da basso profondo, 
For the spread of the forms bearing newest and latest advantage; 
But I have seen too much tO' mix systems with chances. 
Or to theory tO' attribute success due to resource; 
Nor can I see sense in the jumps for exchanging despoilers. 
You will get used to me later on, and agree with me. 
Theocracy superposed on rigid democracy 
Is a double autocracy instead of a single. 

53 



Yet there are millions who chant of such system as freedom, 

And one Senator at least is its champion fantastic. 

All governments are alike in regard to new freedom. 

Slow is the farmer to graft, yet swift to the politician. 

If you try to establish new liberty, it is treason. 

Preservation of prior forms, not fresh essence, inspires them. 

This stuff is harmless, you know; academic discussion; 

What might be if something had been something else, or such could be.. 

We could live without print, but not without standing-room only, 

After the boxes and stalls had been sold to the sitters, 

In a show where spectators must gladiate for a living. 

And a fighting-rink Europe had been if Columbus had foundered. 

In fact it is time we should pray for another Columbus 

Seeking new space for expansion of passions ungoverned. 

To which the old states should pay people to carrv their passions; 

New theatres to play over the played out old dramas; 

Since the rise of mankind by new chances to rise is now hopeless 

Unless upon social conditions to death-grasp resisted. 

51- 

Yea, the crowded hours seem to call for another Columbus. 
There is a clamor for space from each new generation. 
The clamor for work is a sham; it means space to do nothing; 
One expects to have earned his full pay in mere setting the claim up.. 
The percentage of increase from each requires a new area; 
And if continents may not be found, neither islands invented, 
Let a two-fold Columbus sail forth and discover a planet 
Whereto we may go through the air with the new almirante. 
Work yields only necessaries too few for necessities, 
Food, clothing and shelter and worry, and most of the latter, 
Some journeymen finding that only, while families famish. 
Now, as your plan cannot be worked, let me make a suggestion. 
I purpose abolishing this by accessible planet 
With Elysian attachments where labor shall never be mentioned, 

54 



IWhere free bread, milk and honey and chops put us all on one level. 

So I summon the admiral-aeronaut up to his duty. 

If he fail on the scheme of the nourishment that costs nothing, 

He still must find spheres for new railways and new speculations, 

For the corporations people-created as feudalists, 

And these spheres must provide new careers for recurring Napoleons, 

The brigands of finance and commerce as v^ell as of warfare. 

The world will be never at peace till the gam'blers control it 

In recognized fact as they do it in present appearance. 

And therefore all interests are waiting another Columbus. 

52. 

Must immigrants be looked on as mere penal colonists. 
As slaves not less bond because slaves in a system of vices 
Wherefrom they escape very much as the cottonfield bondmen? 
One state seems to think so with force of a growing conviction. 
What shall we do? Not for room, but for fixing the principle, 
Though room we must have, of course, for expounding the principle. 
Let Britain and Holland give Borneo blank to the nations, 
Of course having previously seized it away from the natives; 
It is larger than Austria, an empire that feeds many people. 
Let all nations own it for emigrants in fee simple. 
But not for return under penalty of the pirate. 
This scheme is intended for operation reciprocal, 
And it might postpone the demand for another Columbus. 
If you go by good will, or take money to go, you must stay there. 
We seek in both cases the benefit of your absence. 
If you quit your old home, 'tis for Borneo once and forever. 
So be it for two hundred years, or for six generations; 
And if at the end of that period the tollmen and others 
Shall have founded another big state and shall stop immigration, 
Thus showing ungrateful contempt for the source of their being, 
It will prove that they and not we are the great and the virtuous; 
That they have dared grasp the idea to cut ofif the steerage; 

SS 



That socialism was put off and not settled by merit, 

And the law of the lawless still governs material successes; 

That to the unwinning the moral law is a rainbow 

With a pot of gold to be graspd at the Christmas-box end of it. 

Rewarding only the chasers of maxim celerity; 

That altruism is an affectation by egoism; 

That liberty is not a right but a privilege, 

A grant by the mass to the man, not inherent in manhood, 

A political childplay subject to act of skuptchina; 

And that family ties between states are the shackles of tariff, 

^Waiting fool to explain them with pen or to cut them with hatchet. 

53- 
We understand immigration by regulation, 
But if you permit that the outlaw partake of your freedom 
You must not expect that the honest man will uplift him, 
Will carry him on as a body-politic equal. 
That would be irony on honesty and on labor. 
Since the honest life is too short and too hard for such sequence. 
Reflect on the old Roman statute which founded Roumania. 
The law of the useless mouths was its business-like title. 
You are precisely defying the Roman experience 
In receiving the sort which the Romans sent to Roumania. 
Put your bright mind to-day on the progeny of those outcasts: 
Wliat character would you decree to the peoples Danubian, 
After twenty centuries or so, were you the Reichskanzler? 
They may found a new state, but cannot do good in an old one, 
As the devil might found a new state, did he need m.ore dominion. 
You may be stronger than Rome, but Rome had no equal, 
The lone-star, invincible kingdom, republic and empire. 
Full of all lusts, irrespective of system or epoch, 
State worthy to die, as it finally died, from their surfeit. 
You have several equals and cannot afford to defy it, 
For space to be filled was the largest of Roman possessions; 
But since then the generations have multiplied vastly. 
While not one of all the religions have conquered their evils. 
You know your own business? Lucifer thought he knew his, too; 
But a fallen-star life would not suit you, more than a falling. 

56 



54- 

It would be well that all foreign press readers remember 

Britain suffers from renegade Englishmen writing as aliens, 

Fate's fugitives, automobile with all men's Penates. 

Whenever I make an assertion, you put a question-point; 

I cheerfully offer you all the honors dogmatic, 

For I am not writing to hurt or to 'vert any human. 

They employ the spites of their home-disappointments as judgments 

Of those among whom they are stranded, who knows not this swindle; 

Your anonyms in more senses than one being anonymous; 

Thus fomenting dissention with hatred all artificial, 

And they often are aided by agitators not English. 

Kindly drop on this trick, O my foreign newspaper reader! 

It does not express your opinion, nor that of your country, 

And we must not let renegades manufacture opinion. 

Great Britain displeases sometimes in the conflict of interests; 

Do not forget that your country is apt to do likewise. 

Nothing in it which arbitration cannot dispose of. 

But whenever you read a gratuitous insult to England, 

Think of runaway dragon and pal, and pursue them with logic, 

Those who bite at the conquering spear since they cannot be sainted. 

But let us agree about arbitration, I pray you. 

If we fail to unite on its meaning, of course it means nothing. 

If you cannot in any case lose, and must always be winner, 

And need not to pay when condemned, wherefore trouble the nations 

To constitute a tribunal whose verdict exempts you 

From all obligation, no matter what it may call for? 

James Kent of the States, of the luminous Chancellor grandson. 

The grandfather being of counsel toward that "more perfect Union," 

And illustrious otherwise in the tomes of his country; 

This grandson, I say, esteemed author of novels historic, 

My friend, urged that patriotism might be purged of some humbug 

By satire, and urged me to try; and thence comes this pamphlet. 

So that it is, after all, of suggestion American. 

57 



55. 

Here follows a narrative from a land of Columbus 
Explaining relations of patriotism to a laundry. 
Years many agone I was seeking at Barranquilla 
A spot whereon to construct for the Cauca a steamer. 
The Magdalena was very high in the lowlands, 
And its rage had driven the serpents to squirm on the hillocks, 
To dispute with each other the chance of salvation from drowning 
As I sprang from one knoll to another pursuing my duty, 
Trying to skip -dispute and pursuit with those reptiles; 
For Captain Diaz warned me loudly not to get bitten, 
To which I have quite an aversion, regardless of poison; 
So I took his remark as superfluous and facetious. 
Like that of John Piatt, who said he would rather not miss me. 
And I spied not afar an old woman by rivulet running; 
The great-great grandmother truly she was of my laundress, 
Who also was there in my interest efficient that moment. 
Two Indian women they were, spanning five generations, 
And proud of their blood which was wholly unmingled with alien. 
And one you might take for the other had age not prevented; 
A fact you may frequently note in a race homogeneous 
As to mother and daughter and other descent in the stirpes. 
Tis when half a dozen races combine in one person 
Or nation, you know not what either will do; and the races 
Know not which of themselves will come out atop in the struggle,. 
Nor whose face nor figure will rise in the next generation; 
Which requires me to pray your more study of ethnics as science. 
Well, my elder was tall, straight and beautiful; scarcely a wrinkle^ 
Though forever she lived with the wrinkling sun of the tropics. 
And almost as agile of step as a girl in a ballet; 
A venerable marvel of women, believe me. 
For the city that year guaranteed her years at a hundred. 
She stood by the trunk of a tree fallen half in the cano. 
Hard tree of a thousand rings from core to circumference; 
It was part in the water, sloping, and forming a washboard. 

58 



The age of the woman and that of the tree were imposing 
With a deeper sensation of awe in a new situation 
Than is given to one man to experience twice in a lifetime 
Amid snakes of all sizes and colors hissing and wriggling. 
A thousand years and a hundred useful together: 
In my long, varied life no other scene so impressive. 
With a touch of great age in her voice, but in clear and stout Spanish, 
She called as I dodged the ophidians: Sefior del Progreso, 
And Captain Diaz, with a heart for the good of the people. 
Are both of you sure you are heading the march of improvement ? 
You have slowly improved us along down the creek from the city 
Here to the very last tree that can serve as a washboard. 
For seldom the rivers drift logs to the places that need them, 
And now you propose to invade our last workplace with steamboat. 
I do not consider that this is the march of improvement. 
The boat may be needed, but so are clean shirts, cufifs and collars. 
Without them how can you decently go on a trial trip. 
Or sail on the Cavca, or anywhere else like Senores? 
You shall not come here: find another place for your building! 
Now, other people's affairs are important, as mine are; 
So I stepped to the front, still in mortal dread of the serpents, 
And I said : Aged dame of a country to me wholly foreign. 
In more than one sense I am master, and Diaz is friendly. 
And Piatt likewise, though Piatt is not very high up in the Spanish; 
But these writhing tangles of dragons seem to oppose us 
In protest united with yours against local progreso. 
Ancient daughter of race which we do not connect with advancement, 
You have improved my ideas of the march of improvement, 
And the same by these slim twisting demons are elsewhere deflected. 
I am always a man of fresh shirts in a climate less torrid. 
And you and this junior beauty I thank for your service 
Here in plight more surprisirg than any descried by Don Quixote, 
And assure you I also take to my heart your suggestions. 
Between steamboat and shirt I am all on the side of the linen, 
With preference for climate where three shirts per diem suffice me. 
But why do you pound with a stone till a hole in the front comes ? 

59 



Do you think that a hole in the bosom makes it look cleaner? 
Or that elegance is related to holes in fine textiles? 
I am very certain it makes them look very much older. 
Mine are new, and I cannot afford your strange methods al fresco. 
Mend the shirts and your ways, and then I will do you this favor: 
The city has offered this lot at a very low figure; 
Neither my boat nor another shall ever be built here, 
For construction I scorn amid threats of a million erpidians. 
I will buy it and give it to you and your children forever 
Because you have taught me new steps in the march of improvement 
And because you seem blandly defiant of these local genii. 
Moreover, the laundress has rights as well as the builder. 
Then this aged dame who might have been queen of the Toltecs, 
And would be if nature, not politics, should make sovereigns, 
The handsomest woman alive at the end of ten decades, 
Rushed on me regardless of snakes and kissed and embraced me, 
Confusing me with the terms which are born of effusion. 
I could not help wishing the great-great grand beauty would follow; 
Her, too, I admired, but with very much less veneration. 
Then they asked me to visit their home. I accepted with pleasure: 
A very neat place; not the slightest suspicion of laundry. 
Because in the tropics all laundryfolk work at the brookside. 
That presenting the largest area for gathering and gossip, 
And they do not invite to their homes till all business is finished. 
There together I saw the whole of the five generations. 
I asked of their husbands; my laundress had never been married. 
And thereon I learned something new of the march of improvement: 
Of the four none was living for one of those beautiful women; 
They had all been slain in the revoluciones, she told me; 
In the revolutions peculiar vvhich govern those countries. 
Intolerant of repose and contentions adjusted. 
Being free myself I insist on the freedom of others 
As they think it best for themselves, and not as I deem it, 
Unless that some universal professor of freedom 
Absorb or annex and protect the importing of freedom 
Until Liberty shriek^herself hoarse in a gladness pretended. 

60 



But we all have the right to be critical in our wonder; 

And the liberty to be killed amid chronic rebellions 

Is not that for which I should flourish my foil-covered foilstick, 

While it seems to invite the professor of freedom to council. 

Am I a library-chatterer, unmingled with worldlings? 

I have dodged bombs behind trees a few feet in diameter, 

And have graphic sense of the loss of both widows and shooters; 

Though experience induces a doubt that the death of a husband 

Is really a loss: some are drunkards, some fighters, some wealthists, 

And some are wife-beaters for more or less tangible causes. 

And in none of these cases does death to the widow seem grievous. 

She who cutteth her dead helper's coupons alone knows true freedom 

From the numerous mischances possible to a husband; 

And in a large meaning, at Moscow or Barranquilla, 

She who washeth liberty's clothes is the rich woman's sister. 

Always willing to change her estate with her opulent kin-wench. 

56. 

Is representation without taxation a tyrannx' ? 

If you were not taxed would you know you were represented ? 

Suppose government on a long spree and the nation still prospering- 

With no taxes at alF; would you sober it up to restore them ? 

Order with minimum of rule and of tax; that is my order; 

But a high grade of people alone can adopt or adapt it. 

Why should stump speeches be often turned on against monarchy 

Unless where some monarchist catches the hosepipe a moment? 

Will you drink with me deeply to Boscawen and his sailors 

Of England at Louisbo'urg, and to Pepperell's Yankees, 

To Sir Edward afloat and Sir William ashore, and all British, 

On the Seventeenth of June, this next year, at the Cecil in London? 

An advantage of nature is wholly apart from jrian's wisdom 

Except the rare chance that man gets it from mater natura. 

This paragraph is not of mine own proposition. 

But of debate overheard in a great western tavern; 

In a roaring cross-roads forum where rum goes with politics. 

6( 



I have simply slipped into metre some prose from the prairies 

Under two flags, and where one is as rich as the other. 

The careers of republics prove both how much and how little 

Mere politics can do for the good of the peoples, 

And that they may give the explosive touch to the cornerstone, 

And without change of form may transform the free life of a nation. 

There still morals grope in the early political tenebrse. 

Because democrats, like monarchists, have gone daft on expediency. 

But praise God they have proven political limitations, 

And that man must at last begin a career economic! 

O those days when politics seemed pancreatic emulsion, 

Elixir of life, the one single cure of all evils! 

When to talk about politics seemed to absolve us from labor, 

Where all men were free, and all talkers, and all lived by talking, 

As though no ass could bray about freedom outside our pasture. 

Dear old politics for the sake of politics only! 

The means to the end was transformed, for the means was the end then, 

And he who suggested science an imbecile dismal. 

Great was the sport, but we could not feed on it forever. 

Now it is different and grim, says the man from the northside, 

Who steameth from Winnipeg southward to read us a lecture. 

You have twisted your natures by speculative excesses, 

He says, while cold industries flourish alone in his section, 

And that we thought about industries only for markets, 

Sir Giles Overreach as a merchant, not as a father, 

And the sellers who hoard for themselves by glutting those markets; 

But first to think of the first right of men to earn livings 

Irrespective of fortunes, why, that never entered our noddles. 

No doubt this is true, as 'tis wicked; but if he would change it, 

Let him bring us the twice-golden age of morals and money. 

The economist has lost caste who is merely a critic, 

And the lecturer on morals alone finds an audience of doubters. 

57. 
Yet a higher system is richer, once you discover it. 
If you could lift all intelligence up to one level 

62 



And keep ii at work there, all nature would gather more profit. 
Ethics and ethnics should be our political studies. 
And the effects of institutions and climates on races, 
Which would raise the significance of expedient science. 
Thoro' breeding in manners may induce the same status in ethics 
If we closely follow them both in their points of relation. 
This would be exquisite means to a beautiful ending, 
For the highest ambition is that of the ethic supremacy. 
Be proud of the breeding that lifts you to level superior, 
But prouder of that which shall raise to your level your fellow. 
The lower orders are higher in this age, but also more bumptious; 
Yet bumptiousness is merely a matter of manner, 
Which the little intent of this paragraph is to make better 
By the process of setting both parties to manners a-thinking. 
All classes are one in the classification of nature, 
Who simply intended the classes as part of her order. 
I humbly have faith and am strenuous on this basis. 
It may be that faith is a modified superstition, 
But it finds a big use sometimes where intelligence flounders. 
Agnostic and gnostic together can build no new deity 
Till they shall know how to harmonize knowledge with ignorance ; 
'Tis only grotesque combination of paring and putty. 
Let each one have faith in his country and do some high homework. 
If that be a superstition it still will not hurt us, 
And will keep away irritation mutual and menace. 
Keep your mind on your homework, not on that of your neighbors. 
If some of your countrymen seem to have grasped the wrong godhead. 
Some others may bet on the wrong agnostic as teacher. 
The professor of no god with no head, who is worse than no godhead. 

The common man is a prouder man than the noble 
Because he is proud that he does not need to be noble, 
Just as the noble feels not the need of being common. 
There is a saddening waste of force in these prideflings. 
The struggle is upward, not downward ; and Citizen Tiptop 
Never tries to descend, while you try to get up alongside him. 

63 



The weight of the argument, therefore, is not on your level, 

And you stultify yourself by affected contentment 

Mixt with abuse and envy of Citizen Lucky, 

While you struggle to reach that distinguished denizen's platform. 

Why not cease to be proud of the state which you try to escape from ? 

You will deem as I deem when you sit beside Tiptop and Lucky, 

That the air is o'erladen with pride of the boomers ambitious 

Who would be something more, but who are what they are, and can't 

help it. 
Human nature tends of itself toward aristocracy ; 
Political systems differ on bases, but stop there. 
Have you heard of a self-made man who tried to unmake'himself? 
The Greeks discovered this fact; no new race has outgrown it, 
.And some new folk are suddenly, steadily strong in it. 
Any system that seeks to ignore it is founded in mockery, 
And Mephisto himself would deny it only in irony. 
The poor love to wallow in comfort and grovel in riches 
Quite as well as the wealthy, and seek them with artifice equal. 
Are you betting only on smartness and luck? Then look backward. 
I propose a new toast to the sons of the first and third cabins: 
The smartness and luck of the forepops who needed no cabin, 
Those first-class old men and their sons who could stay in their country. 
And needed not go to the Philippines nor to Cuba, 
Whether as settlers or heroes by land or by water. 
I was not one who could stay in my country, and did not, 
But I wish to prove how it tastes to toast those who could stay. 
This health may drink hard, but your pluck should be able to swallow it. 
Unless I deemed yours the stronger, I should not propose it. 
We shall thereby be holp to remember our equals as races. 
But I ridicule not, nor take sides; I invite your attention. 
Half-tried schemes are the ones which most favor the jumps at conclusions,. 
The pirouettes of the mind on the peel of banana. 
A fact is a fact, no matter what side of what ocean. 
Nor are you and I bound to drain bumpers to loud self-assertion, 
Though we both quit our lands, if not for their good, for our own good, 
I, the exile of numerous skies, drink to him of but one sky; 

64 



Tawny in foreign wrinkles and years, I salute him 

Who paid not with heart torn from home for the wisdom nomadic;. 

For whom the high Cross at the South is a void constellation 

And Argo Navis sails vainly through islands in ether, 

But on whom happier galaxies glowed in the flames of his fireside,. 

If you give me the new when the old is played out, I am happy. 

But I wish to examine the new before I accept it. 

Let us avoid a break with our story and legends, 

And eschew political pastry in times economic. 

If you deem me severe on the hypocrites of fresh countries, 

Simply wait till I offer my comments to those of Great Britain. 

59- 

A tory trade-free or a democrat tied to high tariff, 

Which is freer? Do dear things charm most when you least can procure 

them? 
Where money earns nothing, neither does labor; thus interest 
Is legitimate as labor; this does not mean usury, 
Neither half pay for work; which are knavish and artificial. 
The rate of interest gauges a sort of prosperity. 
When high in the banks it means profit to money and muscle. 
But three per cent, means a country used up as England, 
Where new enterprise cannot arise because Britain is perfect 
At home, and must tabor abroad for others and Britian. 
Thus philanthropy obligates itself to earn interest 
Abroad, whether foreign anthropos like it or fight it. 
But let us not thirst for gore if we cannot agree on things; 
All savages will seek Britons as soon as they know them. 
Or the States, with us jointly working on manifest destiny; 
By coincidence working with us in alliance predestined. 
Informal, by chance, unsought; therefore so much the stronger. 
Therefore let nobody shriek again in diplomacy. 
Shrieks excite doubt of fair cause, and lose others in ridicule. 
A steamwhistle answer wins not the neutral's opinion. 
And you may regret, after verdict, your chasmic activities. 

65 



William the German was far too prompt in the Transvaal; 
He fomid the chance later for biting- the file at Samoa. 
Be not proud of your Dorian, but sorry you are not Ionian. 
Herakles was stronger than Theseus, but also much coarser. 
With Theseus sufficiently strong, and Herakles not wanted ; 
Although Theseus, I morally scorn for his conduct at Naxos, 
Notwithstanding its frequent imitation by moderns ; 
JSFotwithstanding that new Ariadnes are sometimes deserted, 
Ariadnes of records which had not been learned before marriage. 
Each was typical of the people for which he wrought legends. 
And no race desires always immunity from refinement, 
Andy Boner as permanent substitute for Phil Stanhope. 
A great editor left a great legend concerning the tribe he left: 
A mystery of Providence is a genius on paper. 
There are others who bet without knowing comparative values. 
Many shouters bet on the ignorance of their hearers 
Of the special historic facts they are fond of perverting. 
Self-government should begin with the individual 
For political as well as for moral salvation; 
Not till he masters it should it go to the people, 
When the units are ready to flourish as aggregate prosperous ; 
The fifth and sixth chapters of Matthew will give you the bases. 
I am not finding fault with what is ; merely telling what might be. 
They who have done nothing are those who deem everything easy; 
They who have wrestled with publishers only are weary. 
In public procession, on holiday of the nation, 
Some natives were shot for carrying the little red schoolhouse 
On a banner, the sign of their sturdy early instruction. 
What ahens for freedom fitted could thus murder natives? 
Is the Yankee no longer master and free in his capital? 
Anything that sounds like a sermon is part of the comedy. 
Next to the devil the common foe is the lecturer, 
But a mightily different fellow is he who asks questions. 
Why not admit that some other forms may be equal, 
Forms not of delirium political locally conjured? 
.A thing good for the time may not mean the best thing for all ages. 

66 



Imagination embraces the stars and the mountains 

And all that in them exists for the empire of letters, 

iWhile political ocean level flattens all topics. 

Praise of Demos alone is surely a very dry duty; 

Praise of God is difTerent because it relates to salvation. 

Monotony is the natural forerunner of mania; 

Take not its high-priest as evangelist of your statecraft. 

The wit of man, sages say, is his richest possession. 

Since man only can laugh at intellectual emanations, 

And in politics very brief time is required to exhaust them. 

Excess of politics lands you in idiosyncrasy; 

But, if wilful in this, you must be responsible also; 

Responsible for your errors of will and its lapses. 

The true patriot is he who condemns the defects of his country 

And urges his fellow-citizens to reform them. 

On this there will be some pertinent hints for the Britons. 

60. 

No people grows fat on wind-pudding nor shriek of a wildfowl; 

I still wait for the Mexican Eagle to swallow the cascabel. 

Labor and wealth are far off from political dogma. 

Albeit either would like to create for the other a czarism. 

Look hov/ opulence everywhere scorn eth the systems of statists ! 

Beware of a sunflower success as the pride of a Summer; 

I have seen that it withers at frost of political autumn, 

And that parchments immortal shrivel at heat of a quarrel. 

Look how labor antagonizeth the systems of opulence! 

Nature connects not with any political formula. 

Be thanked every god that we cannot appeal to our mother 

To justify any mere statecraft from czarism to anarchy, 

Though we know that the god of the universe is not elective. 

Or at least we participate not in his nomination. 

Free she left us to choose; we will die in defence of that freedom, 

Die of metaphor, perhaps, if we may not die fighting; 

Since Liberty cannot let herself alone, nor let others. 

67 



A people gorged with its average cares nothing for genius. 

Which is a disturbing force on the level of envy, 

Where it finds the mass of inertia more widespread and denser, 

Where as victim it lives till it finds the release of the martyr. 

By genius is meant the hent or the bent independent, 

The high assonance of a people laboring together. 

This genius may dififer from yours, yet you ought to respect it, 

And not force an average on what has outflown or outgrown you. 

I wish Freedom knew how to keep still and not nag at her sisters. 

I mean Freedom as she lives with us, and not with some other people. 

Though whether as mistress or guest she brings lots of trouble. 

Adhere to our own, the sole basis of lasting progression. 

Do not revolt ; if you do you will smash your traditions, 

Not of government only, but those which are higher and ethnic. 

A race that has lost its traditions begins the world over, 

The Adam of tribes; it is almost as bad as being conquered. 

Remember, ye dreamers whose starting-point is destruction, 

Not an inch can you lift up your lowly by smashing traditions. 

I mean the traditions of race, not of sins nor of errors. 

I could call up some shining examples, but leave you to guess them. 

Since my mission is not to ofTend noi exhaust, but suggest things. 

He who-settles things commonly settles them for an upset. 

He is generally serious, too; which sets other men laughing, 

And that is the trait most commendable in his labor. 

6i. 

Poise not on its apex the pyramid ! So said Dan Webster, 

Not only as statesman colossus, but mighty as thinker, 

Who" at one time was head of the state, while a figurehead seemed such. 

There is ia a man something greater than man, said George Bancroft. 

These were 'great men forever; your >safety depends on their maxims 

And on th(j practice of others from sources scarce lesser, 

Though Saint John of apocalyptic imagination 

Figured nothing so strange as some of Dan Webster's successors. 

Yet, as the age is not smaller, but bigger, the men should be bigger; 

68 



Perhaps they are, but proportion makes them look pigmies, 
And comparing them seems Hke remanding a nation to chaos. 
Where the leaders follow the tumult they dare not discriminate. 
No people should force its government to break treaties 
Indirectly, nor by assuming that others have broken them. 
No worse faith than gratuitous- imputation of motive 
Or act to cover your own, and contemptibly transparent. 
It is already broken, says he who would break it. 
That is a subterfuge because you dare not be honest, 
And does more to debase mankind than could ten thousand prizefights. 
Some things ought to perish, but be not a simple iconoclast. 
No breakers of faith are more curst than those governed by bluster. 
With your votes make the law ; then move onward from that as your basis. 
This is the theory on wine-nights by statesmen of taprooms, 
Intoned with intention to tickle the Tammany tympanum. 
Let us set up progressive anthropological order; 
Progressive euchre affords fewer chances for betting 
On results, and is much more limited in conditions. 
Let us freely cincture the globe with harmonic conditions, 
And m.ake them integral parts of self-evident destiny! 
The States will be with us in this, working part of that destiny, 
Self-promotive for opening all doors and uplifting all races. 
If a national election pend ever from that of a province. 
And that from a town, and that from the boodle of ginmills, 
From what pends your freedom unless from forbearance of masters? 
They own a vote that may make either party the winner, 
The hydra of liberty's franchise free to destroy it, 
Mr. Croker, perhaps, being the principal head in the hundred. 
Acquaint yourself first with your theme; then expound or assault it. 
This maxim so oft hath been violate in court circles. 
That I as a fool was ashamed of my betters in folly. 
My duty is to aid great men to great destination. 
Having learned mine own incapacity for such station; 
In this way I find the pleasure and they find the trouble. 
I accept a great man, not forgetting that greatness is relative; 
Exaggerate him, and you sting me to flinder a fetich. 

69 



Evolution is hindered, not aided, by radical changes, 

Which are wrong till you find something better than evolution. 

It is galvanized ignorance masquerading as wisdom 

Which decrees as successes the measures that waddle as failures; 

But with waterfall voice and a freshet of iteration 

'Tis safe to presume vice and dullness enough for election. 

Francis Parkman decides universal suffrage a failure. 

He was not the son of a monarchy dreading its advent, 

But a democrat sage who lived in its midst and deplored it. 

I do not say I agree with the late Mr. Parkman ; 

I simply note his conviction and courage in speaking, 

While I equally note my conviction and courage in silence. 

One may be a great fool or a great man, and as neither be popular. 

Advocates of continent union are incontinental 

Of wisdom; they mean the division of continents surely, 

But care not, cherishing only themselves and their moment. 

You cannot unite the land by ignoring the water 

In any scheme attaching a profit to any one, 

Unless you diminish the genius of man in its essence. 

Assail not with separant plots the creative idea 

Of Him who united all continents by His Oceans! 

The union of continents on a globe disunited 

And tariffed like stars inimical to each other, 

Would be irony of the creature against the Creator. 

Learn rather to use them both jointly to highest advantage! 

62. 

Now, by Saint Parkman and others, here is sound maxim, 
No matter how few nor how many may vote to sustain it! 
The power of the purse, exercised by the people's assembly. 
Whether the parish assembly or that of the kingdom. 
Is all that a nation should ever admit as elective; 
Since all things elective give too many things to take care of. 
Filling the platforms with demagogues of all dogma. 
Confusing the mind and wasting the time of the citizen. 



Growth is a plant that grows slowly, but confidence comes of it, 

And confidence equals a Himalaya of swagger. 

But it does not result from mere spread of the mind over everything. 

62^. 

British freedom is quite imperfect, and so is American. 
My advocacy of dual convergence of destiny 
Applies not to any special event, or decade, or epoch, 
But is pressed for all time; because, howsoever imperfect 
Either development of liberty may be, there is really no other. 
Sad, but other freedom, even embryonic, exists not. 
Talk of it there is, and science, and arts, and civilization; but not freedom. 
Any man, briefly, who elsewhere, putting it plainly. 
Has tried to enforce a right as a right, without favor. 
Simply to maintain the principle solely, has found such enforcement im- 
possible 
Outside the States and Britain, and not always there possible. 
Neither alone can maintain freedom, nor ally with another 
To maintain it; this also is true and final; for such other 
Would strictly not know what freedom means; any other. 
Herein is on slur; other valuable things other peoples 
Comprehend much more finely than do Britons or Americans; but liberty 
As the absolute right, not the privilege, of free being. 
These peoples, otherwise variously estimable, know not, 
And are thus fundamentally, if innocently, antagonistic. 
This paragraph is not exhaustive, but brief and suggestive. 
I know what it means out of travel and study and money. 
Neither alone can do everything; both, and no other two, can do anything. 
Neither alone is even safe for a wholly free existence, 
A knowledge ignored in the States, but accepted in Britain. 
Let the prejudiced partisans who vote and vote in both countries 
Think this out to a finish prior to allying or denying. 
Of this canto the hexametrical part is omitted 
That you better might heed the matter than manner of singing. 

71 



63- 
Rich men are almightily smart. I praise no one's acumen 
In saying this, since their vanity looks for such flattery. 
A nation in silver so rich as to beggar its value, 
So wealthy in one precious metal it ceased to be precious, 
Made a law to pay premium by way of enriching the people, 
Taxed the people a premium in order to help them grow richer, 
And it kept making money by law till its coflfers were bursting. 
When half the banks suddenly failed and trade came to a standstill; 
And with money by thousands of tons men went hard up for 'bus fare. 
I mean the rich men made this law for the whole of the people 
By dicker with politicians who needed their influence. 
Bear in mind that I do not say this; I quote those who do say it. 
Is that part of success as it swells in triumphant republics? 
If this be the wisdom of dems, what is that of the anarchs? 
If this be the true love of one's country, what is ironic? 
Give us credit and gold, though we touch little gold, and stability. 
While silver destroys its coin-worth by excessive production, 

64. 

vRich men are not always so bright. I hurt nobody's feelings 

In saying this, because no one admits he is wealthy. 

In cathedral, steam-heated, their gospel is that of privation 

To the men of Paul's walk, not his church, in the rain, snow, or hailstorm. 

And their satellites twinkle it out as the lamps of the tenebrae. 

Cardinal Hfred once so preached when I could not preach back at him 

The ironic sermon of clown to the prelate of finance. 

Here I paint his cathedral red ; 'tis the tint the most striking, 

And is worse for his cause than it would be to tatter his sermon, 

Red being not only the color suggestive of warning, 

But likewise suggesting equally doctrinal warming. 

65- 

'But Cardinal Hfred will preach on with the world to him kneeling. 
And my carmine will make his cathedral all the more famous, 

72 



So long as by day and by decade the press spreads his doctrine, 

While to me it gives not even space enough to condemn me, 

Afraid of the mass of mankind to allow me one audience, 

Or even to remind me such topic is not for a jester. 

Slowly these victims of hornet celestial get money. 

As that cataplasms the sting, rights become incidental. 

Then the million-men buy, as they once bought a tribune I know of, 

And the clientage made of the poor buy the praises of rich men 

In the advocate which was founded to damn them in morals. 

When virtue gets strong enough to be dangerous, you buy it. 

Must all purposes gravitate to the purpose of money? 

Is gold ore the loadstone of morals as well as of interest? 

The dawn-rising toiler who goeth to bed when the moon goes 

Would win against him of short hours even in socialist system, 

If we had it established, says Gibson. I should not deny it, 

Were it not for the fact that socialism subjugates selfism 

And substitutes altruism; do you see this, O Senator? 

It eliminates the porcine part of the dawn-worrier's nature. 

I tell you what socialists tell me, and guarantee nothing. 

Establish a press of your own and support it, ye pencemen, 

And let never the note of a guineaman ring in its columns. 

Maintain this a full generation; thereon the cathedral, 

Not needing retouch of my carmine, for you will be ready, 

V/hile Cardinal Hfred takes his turn at a street-preacher's meeting. 

High-priest of the sons of bare head and the heirs of the shoeless. 

66. 

We are free to sneer at and blow up what is aristocratic. 
But must speak with affection and awe of the things democratic 
On pain of being publicly hissed as proud, brutal and caddish; 
That is, the achievements that go by the name democratic. 
As though born of themselves, without aid, contribution, suggestion. 
There is no reason why these should not have their innings. 
The Most High is the patron of such in his large declaration, 
And when He permits them to win, the scale is colossal, 

73 



Full of chromatical blare, and oration, and dazzle. 

The diagnosis of this situation is easy. 

The Lord made the poor, and the rich have improved the material 

As the Lord intended, I deem, or he would not permit it. 

Yet so much is allowed that is not of celestial beginning, 

That perchance I am wrong in ascribing to fortune such origin. 

The fortunate seek to evade the eye of the needle, 

Or, rather, the destiny involved in the parable. 

They brought nothing into this w^orld, any more than the fellow 

Whose giant mind never gets hit by the lightning of Plutus. 

And they do not appear to take any more hence when they leave it. 

Yet some plutocs so-deemed leave so little, I think they must take some, 

]\Iany incidents in the plot of the comedy human! 

The rich ought not to be rich, nor the poor be unwealthy, 

If we judge by the deadlock where both parties flounder by cycles. 

There is no affectation in taking this view ; rather courage. 

To rave at superior like parson at sin tasks no bravery. 

The right of abuse is proportioned to absence of money. 

The right to be critic, if rich, should be never admitted. 

'Tis the ill-favored land makes the people industrious and honest. 

The clime that creates of itself all the needs of the human, 

\Miile the well-favored land makes them careless, ungrateful and slothfuL 

I am one of the connnon herd by both birth and misfortune. 

Or a whole common herd in myself, or I dared not have writ this. 

To be varied of topic is not to be careless or aimless. 

As you will confess by tlie time I get through with the patriots, 

Including the Wellington type and the Tammany heelman. 

Faust and Don Juan are not cut like Electra and Iliad, 

Yet either is equally classical and immortal. 

67. 

Men continent burdened are short of imagination. 
Those lovers of acres as acres, no matter who owns them. 
Italy, to the square mile, is surcharged with population; 
But, while fertile as beautiful, the attraction of beauty 

74 



Is first on the tongues of her sons as on those of the strangers, 

The bountifulness of the arts being the primal impression; 

Forty times larger country is forty times as deficient. 

Pinion-weary the spirit too long on the wing of dominion! 

Too much real estate is alert to exclude the ideal. 

The hopes and the forms of the mind and the eye lose their outlines 

In the dull content and the narrow passion of owning; 

So that a novel idea creates a disturbance, 

Even a joke interjected for lightening the land-burdened spirit. 

All ideas must favor the objects of seizing and holding. 

Some approvable ways I am hinting of getting and keeping 

Without regard to the wishes or feelings of others. 

The safest way to get rich is by unearned accretion 

On the unimproved by the earning improvements of neighbors. 

And greater than Warren Hastings is he who first grasps it. 

Who first locates the lot and then waits for his friends to build 'round it. 

But for this you must locate the lot, and then pay nothing for it, 

In a spot where your neighbors are crazy to put up big buildings. 

This suggests that sudden riches are not always easy. 

Cut if we discuss it at all, let us grasp it like Hastings, 

Who first grasped, then discussed, and then owned more securely than ever.' 

Rich men continent-crammed are grasping in ratio to riches; 

From which 'tis inferred some new men will adjust the relations. 

But that is a prompting of envy; when a man goes to greatness, 

What matters it whether he went there by chance or by merit? 

Who shall say chance is not part of the means providential. 

And therefore integrally part of the greatness arrived at? 

If I deem myself big and my partner but little and lucky, 

Why did I lack the desert that discovered his chances? 

I cannot be great for another, unless through his fortune, 

Yet both would be poor and unknown were it not for such fortune. 

Let us give this conundrum up and go on with the story. 

There are a few millions like Midas to one like George Peabody. 

You would deem that vast space would aggrandize their minds, but it does- 

not. 
If one owned a mile wide of town lots from one sea to another, 



His mind would be narrow in geometric proportion. 

Ye whom I hit, strike me back, and thereon I will name you 1 

I should like to "name names" as Parliament never dared do it. 

The satiric buffoon full of detail is vastly more dangerous 

Than inimical editor hedging in fear of a lawsuit, 

Or a member afraid of expulsion if lacking proof technic. 

68. 

Stuffed with all riches, these gentry are satiate, vae nobis! 

Nothing is as it ought not to be, but all as it should be 

In this little pamphlet; art sure thou art reading it rightly? 

Nothing else is more curst, neither poorer nor coarser than pursepride, 

Yet could I tell of the men loud and proud in its praises. 

Why have they talents? To win them the purse of superbia, 

The means to be showy in one of the capital vices 

By the capital talent to stumble on treasure-trove chances. 

Therefore let them be proud of their fortune, not of what won it. 

Nature denied them the gift of being modest when lucky. 

As to most she refuses the gift of being lucky when modest. 

When my lines contradict each other, the truth lies between them. 

69. 

What good do you find in the tales of the millions you touch not? 
Does it warm you, half frozen and homeless, to pass a bright window 
At night, where music comes through, whereon flame-figures flicker? 
I tell how things are; if you do not like them, reform them. 
There is little of moral sense now; everything is called business. 
There are parsons who preach that the moral sense never was higher. 
The argument is that charity is abundant. 
This signifies mainly that business never was better. 
So are the means; they abound in a larger proportion. 
Which is proof of the need of a system not needing charity. 
•Organized charity is a system of salaries 

That pays clerks for pitying the fellows who need what they ask for; 

76 



The more pressing the need, the larger the wonder they need it. 

This is the parson's delight, but his mind is not worldly 

In the sharp knowledge required for distributing agent. 

His heart right and his system wrong, he dares not denounce it 

For fear of rich vestrymen, richer and stronger than ever, 

And would preach the same doctrine in Hades, if parson could go there. , 

Parsons, like hotellians, must work for the men who support them. 

Morals are not yet quite dead, but business absorbs them. 

But let me be just: With a better life, parsons were better. 

You may not be great man of afifairs because of large business, 

Or you m'ay; or may dazzle the world as an accident lucky 

Till the ratio inverse of ability unto duty 

Shall enable you to ruin yourself and your partners. 

Perhaps this is what the capitalist is afraid of 

When you seek his approval and wealth in your venture colossal. 

Praise him who earned fortune and kept it and died and bequeathed it, 

That is, if you set up the egoist as your model. 

70. 

Ihe distinction of the poor is their poverty; no one denies it. 

Though some parties call it destruction: this is misnomer. 

They survive, as we see. Their distinction is due to the Pluti, 

Who discover them apt for and fill them with doctrinal wadding. 

To our land of the overpeopled their own Pluti drive them. 

Their poor men seeking to syndicate a bonanza 

Whence a newspaper legend of mine wealth was chipped from the matrix. 

They hoping our public might not yet have learned of the legend. 

It seems a reporter had previously printed a notice 

About this bonanza and had not been paid for his praises; 

So he went with the party to witness the process of salting, 

And combining with vengeance the glee of a devil defeated, 

He slyly slipped into the salting his clip of description. 

Where it formed a geological part of the value. 

Our pubHc, I know, take but little of heavy reflection, 

77 



But of irony, epigram, satire, they never find surfeit; 
And a journalist-tale in a matrix is good for all ages; 
It would put an hilarious new theme in the temple Olympian, 
If I mav judge by the mirth of the court when I told it. 
The best seasoned god finds new joke in such ingenuity, 
And nothing ingenuous in reporter or salters. 
Those bonanza-boys come to our land where intelligent friction, 
Or too many heads to the acre, compel a solution. 
Where enterprise lives unforbidden by corporate saintdom. 
From the lands where enterprise lies in the morgue of the Pluti. 
Lies dead because it had lied to their mass of investors. 
Do they come to lay pipe for the small hoards of widows and orphans 
As slyh' as he of the story laid in his description. 
Thus destruction is not the port of the poor, but distinction 
In landing with us to land schemes their home-Plutocs had scuttled. 
Ever narrow and cold will the world be, devoted to hoarding. 
You must gTeatly expend to be great, and be quick to perceive it 
If you be tired of repeating the past and its failures. 
Better man of business the altruist than the miser, 
Since he is, in one sense or another, a master of movement. 
I repeat, as a mere man of business he is superior. 
But that does not make it his duty to help foreign salters. 
'Tis an old platitude to refer to the "Earner, 

But the system should be so arranged as to leave all men earners; 
Or all men witli chances to earn; not some willing and victims, 
Whose needs are as large and intense as are his with ten incomes. 
That is the trend of the giant minds fin-de-siecle. 

For they trend, when they start, like a coast to make inlets for commerce, 
^Meeting the minds that trend to stay commerce by tariff. 
The gambler and idler and clipper of coupons enrich not. 
Though as mere occupation that of the clipper quite clips me. 
But where money earns interest, that is not a man earning money, 
Though the money, not doing this if it could, would be silly. 
I am straddling here to keep friends w-ith both labor and capital. 
Yet he who begins with capital as an earner 
Is a fellow who has an advantage over his fellow, 

78 



Having not only labor but ialjor's results to begin with. 

Do not seek on this theme to bluff me, or yourself, or another; 

But whatever you deem or desire, the winner is winner. 

71- 

The worst portent seems as deep as the marrow in nature: 

'Tis the worship of thorax in oratorical action. 

Or of pen-bent intelligence wrestling to free some new notion. 

Man loves his own voice, and is vain of the popular plaudits. 

And when boy I missed never a chance to applaud a stump speaker, 

Precisely as you whoop up your great man in this epoch 

When he solves problems by airing them to the public, 

That is, when he solves them by airing the need of solution. 

When he shall put off this pride and rate talk as a razzle 

And airing a process that simply invites further airing. 

At twenty guineas per night and first-class hotel paid; 

When he works for results to a plan with mechanic precision, 

He v/ill touch in the end what the puffers have dreamed for the masses. 

Till that day he will attitudinize on a platform. 

The uneasy mind getting paid for reform by the evening, 

Or stips literary for writing of what we attain not. 

Let us cheer till he cannot hear his own voice, this professor 

Of good times inconveniently distant dangled before us; 

Let us applaud him to death, this perennial reformer. 

72. 

The promoter never works for his own disadvantage. 
Appeal not to lavish expenditure to disprove me, 
Xor to hospitalit}', favorite fad of the selfish; 
Mere interest advanced to get hold of another man's principal 
By some plotter seeking to pawn geological figment; 
A blind chance at possible wealth in the fury of avarice. 
These are part of the splurge, of the dazzle and bluff of the racket. 
Hospitality is a fetich long needing the tomahawk, 

79 



And if it were not for some friends, I believe I should wield it. 

Yet why ought private regard to prevent public duty? 

Be there not those who sacrifice friends to the public; 

And commit, as a part of their patriotism, private high treason? 

Meanwhile I think about dinners, postponing my duty. 

73. 

A trainboy may rise up in riches to buy a Velasquez, 
But a palace-car decoration were more to his gusto 
If he did not covet the fame of owning a masterpiece. 
Is he not justified? Surely. I hasten to prove it. 

Good taste should be spread, and ex-trainboys should help to distribute it- 
Praxiteles was a rich man as well as a sculptor, 
And Sir Francis Chantrey was wealthy outside his profession: 
Both gifted by fortune, you see, as well as by nature. 
A rich man like either would starve himself for the beautiful, 
While the lucky trainboy would merely buy it with money, 
Proud with a quid of tobacco to own a Velasquez. 
Mere capacity to buy is no proof of his judgment, 
Nor of lack of it; neither of taste, but of simply his money; 
But the dictum of ages imposes itself on his innings, 
Though he cannot ascend to the stature of Praxi nor Chantrey. 
I could not congratulate him on a dozen Velasquez 
Unless for the purpose of making them gifts to the pujblic. 
Since the gods of Hellas retired or expired, no successors 
Have inspired equal forms, equal lovers of form for its own sake, 
And in passion for color and form burns the genius artistic; 
Therefore may we be grateful meanwhile even for such patron 
As the self-lover self-made, who desires you to know it, 
This man good to himself in grand gou', and deserving acknowledgment,. 
Who bought a Velasquez in order to help you to know him 
In the exercise of his right as a man with the money. 
And in sublimate passion to aid in good taste distribution 
By acquiring the fame of having it locked in his parlor. 
The artist must live, and one's money is good as another's, 

80 



Though Velasquez is dead in the glor_v of art and its sorrow, 

And neither he nor new compeer is helped by the purchase. 

The fresh millionaire faints when you call for the courage of critic. 

I do not refer to the pluck of the bull, but the critic. 

Let him boast of the ownership, also the guineas it cost him. 

Half a loaf or no bread? I will take half the loaf and Velasquez, 

Trusting him to find his way to a gallery later 

And to educate there many trainboys in canvas of value, 

While I pray the dead gods to revive and remodel the self-made. 

Not necessarily he who growls rich grows beneficent; 

He may or may not, but examples discourage us greatly. 

And the few who have conquered themselves are remembered as titans. 

The millionaire gives you the chance to display your fine raiment 

At his ball, my fine lady; but what is that for beneficence? 

You have looked down on those too poor to be thither invited; 

You have saturated your soul and your garments with egoism 

And gone home tired out; and live only for chance to repeat it; 

And some of you defend this as the new Revelation. 

Have I not heard you defend it, soaked in court-lustre? 

74. 

Better the average of comfort than isolate splendors. 

No democrat can go further than that, nor speak warmlier; 

Few democrats dare go so far, since the socialist pillory 

Awaits him who has courage to dream of all men free and happy, 

All equal, all happy, all free in the genuine meaning. 

Such an one was a bard in old times, but is now a disturber r 

Plutus replaces the bard; not the god of equality. 

As general beneficence seems to get nearer the masses 

The few quake, though these dreams, if concreted, would make them the 

richer. 
Carnot asked if liberty be a perennial illusion. 
Is the real popular good a perennial false vision, 
I would ask of Lazare, whose career is the pride of all patriotism. 
Now let the hirelings of millions combine for their vengeance! 

81 



Let the starvelings on other men's riches proclaim every Plutus 

A Pericles of talent as well as of money; 

A Servius Tullius of kingly consideration, 

Or a wit like tired President Lincoln announcing the folly 

Of saving the constitution and losing the country. 

There are great and good others with whom a comparison flatters. 

Have I not committed the crime of lampooning the upstart 

And so started up those who prosper by flattering that fellow? 

If the starvelings fail to exinguish me, sack them, O Pluti! 

And hire a new gang to distribute the doctrinal wadding, 

One more hungry, more thirsty, more transmissive as well as receptive. 

75- 

Long vogue as a prophet may come to a demon of irony 

In arts and politics, though he be whole unbeliever. 

Not to believe greatly aids in constructing abstractions. 

The builder being unhampered by faith or enthusiasm. 

Such an one may persuade generations to deem him sincere in them; 

He may influence nations to bloodshed in support of his theories, 

While, bloodless and soulless himself, he laughs at his triumph 

In conducting a race to a destiny tragico-comico. 

The States, France and Britain possess each a shining example. 

Mephistos of men, three nations mistake them for prophet? 

Of ultimate social truth and political wisdom. 

75h 

To aver that a difificulty is an opportunity 
Hath a lofty sound, and is worthy the late Earl of Derby. 
In verifying the dictum luck was not always with me. 
Suppose socialism should possess by avowal a Beaconsfield, 
Quite sincere, and illustrious as he was in ofifice and letters, 
But without independent fortune; he would be failure. 
Since he would not take money of poor men for doing his duty. 
While with wind alone he could not. Then figure a poor man, 

82 



Socialist till rich, unexpectedly rich from source sudden, 

And turning his back on the record. These two suppositions. 

Which regarding big advocacy present the case fully, 

Show where the cause of the poor becomes jammed, and I know it, 

Because in many a nation I watched its development 

As spectator too diffident and too slight for supporter. 

And not knowing how to win if disposed to be champion, 

Which I did not incline to be. Now, what is the remedy? 

Lord Beaconsfield and I being "dished," I recur to a Moses 

For moral command, and a Burke for impressive unfolding, 

Combined with the technical skill of some modern trust magnate 

Of big millions, to establish this cause; and for him I still whistle. 

He deems wealth a chance, sees in poverty a condition, 

And in its extinction a theory to tickle philosophers 

And to drive economists mad, while he remains magnate. 

76. 

Increase of knowledge is increase of borrow, said Solomon; 
Increase of borrow of trouble; he called it sorrow; 
Which is merely the borrowing of bad, not good, from the future, 
If you can only harden your heart to believe it. 
I pity not him of worry, but him who is proof against it. 
With him sympathy is pure chance; a moral result a mere accident. 
Sometimes I make mine own texts; sometimes I take others. 
Solomon learned it as man; as king could transmit it to history. 
It might not have lived had a person of low degree said so, 
P'or surely 'tis one of the things we would rather believe not, 
Whether you read as he wrote or as I have transposed it; 
Which clearly shows that high sayings should come from high fellows. 
A certain degree of authority goes with an office 
Which the man who held it lacks when he goes with the exes. 
Are we snobs to exaggerate first and then to depreciate? 
But whence comes this solemn relation of knowledge to sorrow? 
Knowledge binds not a friend, because, by so much as you swell it. 
You attenuate the bonds that hold you to equals. 

83 



When Harvey discovered, did medicoes seek to sustain him? 

So long as he li^-ed they denied hke an aggregate Peter, 

This is neither deep nor dry, and it ought to be obvious. 

As knowledge augments, the sphere of its use is diminished 

Until you have drummed up the learners slow and resistive. 

I mean strictly the stuff which the king and the world have called knowl- 
edge, 

But not my ideal; make no charge of self-contradiction! 

To be czar of intelligence is to be dreadfully gifted. 

Since that makes it impossible to have fun with an equal. 

And between unequals gravity only can flourish; 

And this, carried too far and maintained too long, becomes madness. 

Isolate height was the source of King Solomon's sorrow; 

Whose court more than Henry the Eighth's might have needed Will 
Somers, 

Had he not been comedian and songster as well as the monarch ; 

And he was, I infer from his poems, exempt from all mascotry, 

From respect for the practice whereby women keep in that order. 

But false doctrine that leads to the true, in itself is true doctrine, 

Though the chance of the truth shall not make the false prophet a true 
one. 

The majority trusts not until it can climb to your level. 

All this is a paradox seeming of mental expansion 

When serious enough to quit contemplation of Columbine, 

And the cause of lone pride to the intellectual leader, 

Who is fortunate in not going so high up as Solomon. 

They come to his posture at last with a kicking surrender. 

Helpless, ungrateful, unworthy of having been lifted; 

And the contemplation of dullness saddens enlightenment; 

So that, after all, the pantomime gives us more comfort. 

77- 

Take out from the past its conceits and so value it truly. 

The poor past, full of signs for blind guides and of texts for false preachers. 

True history is to be found in the public records only; 

84 



All else is but others' opinion of what should have made it, 

Confounding virtue and making even patriotism pernicious. 

The man of business is he who knows his own business, 

Not he who dabbles in all men's, not knowing any. 

Tell this to Bill Tip who would make you his next traviato. 

Be he gifted of Wall Street or sequent of Colonel Jack Battleship. 

Most seers see too much; their visions obscure one another, 

Though glory glows to a flame from the spark of conception. 

To touch too many topics might even confuse an Isaiah, 

The loftiest and most oratorical of the prophets. 

Or make him confute himself by excess of description, 

Since the noble art of stopping is no part of frenzy. 

This paragraph shows up the up-to-date style of non sequitur. 

78. 

Give me the man who can seize an idea from the future 
And train the present to quicker and firmer grasp of it; 
He is the patriot deserving well of his country 
And worth a whole pantheon full of the priests of dead issues, 
The wandering minstrels of ages known as historians 
After the ages are past; any fellow could be one; 
Or a capitol full of the statesmen of Naboth's vineyard, 
Those of Ahab and Jezebel in a Christian century 
Seeking filibustero pretexts for robbing the weaker; 
The factors of Antichrist in things other than Christian; 
Great men sometimes, whom experiment grinds into demagogues 
Or flings out of public life, thus annulling their uses, 
To accept in their stead the sublimate sons of a theory 
Whose practice and pride is the opportunism of a forum. 
You are too sure of the doubtful: take public opinion; 
One never knows when it will jump on its last previous whimsy, 
Take tariff and silver abroad as a clearly mixt instance. 
Take them abroad and anchor them out of the country; 
Henceforth the world sails with trade free and appreciative money. 
Now, my philosophic friend, let us question a little. 

85 



Does democracy make men more gracious, one with another, 
Any democracy — not that of a country particular? 
The self-principle of democratic equality, 
The assertion of self over others which always goes with it 
In private, as irony upon public profession? 
Dodge not the issue here, nor answer something not asked you. 
Does democracy tend to develop the graces of living. 
Or to smother them and develop the sneer that ignores them. 
Or insist on new substitutes? That is the point of importance 
As suggesting what governs democratic social life ad interim. 
Does it lessen the conflict of lusts and the fury of interests? 
Strike, but hear me! I am the fool pothook-laden with questions 
Which boil whenever the fires of thought are stirred under them 
And on interrogation-points try to catch answers. 
Take not yourself too seriously, nor let me so take you. 
I desire to project some new schemes for the popular amusement,. 
Reserving a number more as to premise and logic. 
May I not entertain, if I cannot mstruct, ere the axe fall? 
Since democracy has condemned us all in the ultimate 
Unless some plan more adjustable come to displace it. 
Why should the chief of the state be the foe of the nation 
In the estimation of those who abstained from electing him? 
Will the ultimate perfect come out of such a tentative, 
The attempt to belittle because the majority beat you? 
I appeal to the thinker outside of political bondage, 
Not to Tammany heelman with grammar enough to be editor!: 
What was worse than Cromwellian abuse of President Cleveland. 
Who finally lapsed to a Canning Professor of Jingo? 
The fate-banished sons of the feudal who dwell in republics 
Become the most eager and sordid of all who love millions. 
Not the halcyon voters of equal-free-fortune system. 
Inherited craving, not system political, governs them. 
Nothing else incites so grave doubts of political formulas, 
Neither suscitates so deep grief for the heirs of redemption,. 
A naphtha-monopoly stinks the east wind for Manhattan 
And no district or other attorney dares sue to suppress it;, 

86 



I appeal to the noses that dwell on a fourth of that island. 

Yet monarchy is effete and republic is glorious. 

What private monopoly stinks any free wind for London? 

By preliminary means of the corporate principle 

Has democracy taken the route to the sphere of autocracy? 

Is it destined to grow to one head in the name of too many? 

Despite himself, shall the democrat glide into autocrat 

To preserve intact the system of wagemen and millionaires, 

With free scheme of ten milHons to nothing, not million to million? 

If he shall, what then will become of the plum-pudding populist? 

Will autocracy, as political cannibal, eat him? 

Now, whether autocracy, socialism or democracy 

Bring the greatest good to my ninety-and-nine who most need it, 

Or monarchy British, this pamphlet will injure no interests, 

But will focalize thought on the various archies and systems 

And will strengthen that in the end which is most meritorious. 

F'or I love the race, not as one by celestial appointment, 

Nor as prophet, nor poet, nor doctrinaire, with such purpose 

As goes with professional lover; but as simple believer 

In acceptance of moral law at the end of experience. 

In the pace to that goal let us take what we may of amusement. 

Next to my passion for ridiculing the bogus 

Comes my pleasure in asking approval for that which deserves it; 

And, wholly free of conceit, I leave you to select it, 

79- 

In the day of the condemnation of seizures piratic 

And the spiking of maritime guns by tribunal elective, 

With lustrums of universal peace in the offing. 

What more imposing than warfleets with dummy-guns loaded 

And commanded by men like me, deep in first cabin knowledge? 

We should admire them like kings in the glare of the footlights. 

Or the ground-spry and lofty magicians of sawdust and tinsel. 

As new pantomime for old boys who require a new laughter. 

The arbiter sails in the fore with bow and stern-chasers ashore left. 

87 



The new admiral is he whose gun hath a bang more melodious, 
A range of more definite blank, a more slow-burning powder. 

80. 

Mephistopheles on the ocean seems doomed to inaction; 
He lacks principle still, while not daring to set up a pretext, 
And his navy is not yet quite up to the mark in proportion. 
A party created by war must continue by bloodshed, 
No matter what is the party nor whose is the patria; 
They hug tlie«old issues and whoop up the people on victory. 
In the creed of Ben-Politisham all things are holy, 
As holy things likewise are sham for the ends of his faction. 
The seeking of quarrels may be a professional duty. 
If the king can do no wrong, even less can the party. 
Here I digress for old man's new advice to all nations. 
I have lived in them all, thus acquiring some rights to opinion, 
To opinion that is not the froth of conceit patriotic. 
And I love a side-issue or show, and my forte is digression. 
When your next war is finished, refuse to consider a treaty. 
Self-respect, if war be the native condition of nations, 
Requires that they shall not lie themselves into peace-treaties 
Only to suffer the useless disgrace of their fracture. 
The superfluous neutralization of glory by falsehood. 
Moreover, a bond never binds where an interest is greater; 
This is a technical reason for not making treaties. 
Here your statesman fifes up his war and drums in his patriots. 
Sign a certificate simply that you have stopped fighting, 
So that the neutrals may know how to act on the ocean. 
At some point a party to treaty begins to interpret, 
As on that of Eighteen-'Eighteen or of Clayton-Bulwer, 
No offence to John M., or Sir Henry, or either great nation; 
Some one wishes to have his own way, so he calls it interpret, 
Law being the only place where plain words have two meanings. 
The other politely rejects the interpretation, 
Which leaves the defeated sore and disposed to denounce it ; 

88 



.All in friendly part, of course; though it seems not quite pleasant 

When cosignatory shows you were wrong in the signing. 

The joke is on him till he shows he was right in the signing, 

Or if neither was right, 'tis colossal, ironic and solemn. 

Full of chances for new Secretaries to make reputations. 

Then one will outgrow, in the course of nature, the treaty; 

This is merely a question of time, and nothing can change it; 

So obvious that even a fool is superfluous in saying it. 

Then comes quid pro quo; but each wishes the quid without quo, 

And quid and quo both are hung up in the status quo ante. 

It m.atters not who are the parties, nor what is the compact, 

The outgrowing country will certainly strive for its freedom. 

Just as, in compounding the treaty, it tried overreaching. 

At length faith and the treaty 'come broken, some heads being included, 

While no treaty had meant no diplomacy and no fighting. 

Or if we decline your proposition for treaty. 

Attack us; no reason for war in itself is a reason. 

For why should a reasonless thing look about for a reason? 

If you hurry your ally into retaliation. 

Assault him and make your own terms, unless he should lick you. 

And swear that he did not retaliate, but simply provoked you. 

On putting the foe in the wrong hangs your whole moral fortune. 

And to do that, spare not millions of cubes of oration. 

Yet your moral fortune imports not, provided you lick him. 

Stand on your readiness; never mind the morals; lick him! 

Be brave with material reasons; not coward with pretexts. 

The satirist and the satyr alone defy humbug. 

8i. 

Strange that a man just verging fivescore should need say it, 
But your ally will rob you the instant he thinks it will pay him; 
King Richard the First and King Philippe Auguste set the pace yet; 
Mediaeval robbers sparing each other while allied, 
Shaking hands and swearing to loyalty during alliance. 
If I tell who he is he may use my remark as a pretext. 

89 



You may look in vain, alas! for true ethics in statecraft. 

If you think there is more than the dregs, quit the state and turn church^ 

man; 
It is nobler to try to save souls than to lie to immortals. 
Better leave yourselves free for new deal or fresh grab any moment. 

82. 

This is seriously worthy a trifle more of attention 
From triflers, the serious men having already got through with it. 
If blufif work well at home, why not on the foreigners try it? 
If it fail, you have only humiliated your country, 
Though not in a way that may hurt your particular feelings. 
Particularity differs in men as in nations. 

And sometimes the nations grow gay at burlesque of punctilio. 
The errors and crimes of a country must not be admitted; 
The motives were high, or what is the use of state^papers? 
Confession is good in a man, but not in a people; 
The collective rule, in such case, would outrage its dignity. 
Double-bank and misbank, on your bluster and foreign poltroonery^ 
And still worship the statesman whose genius procured the affliction.. 
Never distant a block is a fisticuff if you wish one. 
If you really mean war, one pretext is good as another; 
And the editor is the General of musses gratuitous. 
You meet in guise godly the enemy's declaration 
If he make it first; but if his be too slow in the coming. 
You call God to witness the outrage invoking your vengeance, 
The God who said vengeance is mine: I will requite him. 
And if you be blasphemous, also his aid in your gore-game. 
And then pitch in first; you know it was war you were seeking^ 
And not only war is a game, but the ways to get into it. 
The best being patriotism snivelled in phrase of the Psalmist. 
But, as I said, if you want it, tog out your own motive. 
Equal are virtue and virus if only you get it. 
Not one right has your enemy if you know you can lick him. 
If he claim the natural right to existence and freedom, 

90 



Shrink not that the world call you arrogant, cowardly, voracious;. 

The new moral law is included in opportunism, 

And logic is strong with the party who was not a winner. 

For I never knew winner who troubled himself about logic, 

Whereas the defeated never get tired of explaining. 

Fear not to use your God's name to cover the covetous. 

Let both prate of natural rights ; the more potent will take them. 

You are not in his way; but whether or not is no matter. 

You are always right in your own opinion; and others 

Have no right to be right in theirs; it is merely assumption 

In them; but you cannot err; there is no other difference. 

Manifest destiny is only one part of God's order. 

And not less it belongs to one nation than to another, 

Since contingent it is upon how its professor shall work it. 

And must seriously count with the chances of being successful. 

With the chances against it destiny is a boomerang, 

Howso manifest it might be in a miscalculation. 

But I will not now lengthen this dictum out with a lesson. 

An executive gave me his mind, but that was in confidence. 

A small war had a bigger result than many a bigger one; 

A compliment, spite of such war, to the size of the principle. 

Manifest destiny was not big enough to escape it. 

Dual possibilities suddenly loomed from a vision 

Which had been single and narrow, spasmodic and selfish, 

Irresistible morally if you know how to work them; 

Which would march of themselves without military commander. 

Already empires defiant have halted to ponder it. 

But if you dare not affirm what they dread in negation, 

Your manifest destiny is the dream of an oyster. 

83. 

If you will have war, no matter what punches your animus. 
Sarcasm, subterfuge, paradox, parody, caricature, 
Irony, falsehood, convenience or love of the bogus 
Will adorn your pretext as gay as the flutter of ribbons 

91 



In the battle of battledores giant and shuttlecocks bloody. 
Qui s'explique se complique; but I name no particular nation. 
If you be in doubt, preach a little while still getting ready; 
Then whack him with odds in your favor; and if a Cromwellian, 
Put the Puritan twang and tone in your justification, 
And bear bonos mores in mind if they turn you in money. 
All nations pay tribute to that which is leader in commerce, 
Adding the banker's commission to all other profits; 
Thus each struggles for primacy in its distribution, 
For that commission of banking is much to be coveted. 
A pirate has written of wresting it; let him rest there, 
Too old to fight, or to write for the reading of sailors, 
This admiral of a quill in a double sense furtive. 
A colossal mine and unique, trade cannot skip dividend 
Even if it would; this Golconda of needs and of labor 
May be neither shut nor exhausted: thou who art leader, 
See that thy powers match the policies of the covetous. 
Seize Exeter Hall as recruiting tent for the Navy! 

84. 

Seek not too much experience, either as man or as nation; 
Assimilate that of to-day ere you bite at to-morrow. 
Were I young man I should hope to see arbitration 
Supplanting the crime and the fuss and feathers of armies;' 
Yet should it come to be merely high formule for trickery, 
I should wish to see it replaced by armies and navies. 
Try not superfluous experiments just for the fun of it. 
If you trouble the tribune of nations merely for claiming, 
Self-respect laid aside on the chances of winning or losing, 
The high court of peoples may rule you unfit for a plaintiff. 

85. 

Political things should be those of expediency only; 
It ought to be therefore expedient to lessen their number, 

92 



To substitute principles fixt for the makeshifts of moments. 
But who has the moral power to enforce such expediency? 
Let the nations appoint a court of honor to do it, 
A permanent court of equity for such purpose 
If Nicholas Second should fail in his scheme of disarmament. 
This would put upon honor a premium very much needed 
In the sordid era of pubHc and private transactions. 
My friend, you have traits duly pondered and valued by others, 
But parts of your system were better not copied by Britain, 
Model and hope of the strenuous, fear of the wrongster, 
Individual freedom upholding and therefore collective, 
Survivor of fangles and gerent by force of example, 
And justifying the balance of human dominion 
Like a satellite of the sun among comet-tail orders; 
A regent of wisdom and light direct from their permanence 
To extend and establish for them a sway wider and juster. 
Manifest opener of door in the destiny of all nations. 
This is the way a man sets forth to talk of his country 
When smit with a fit of the sentiment called patriotic. 
One fellow can do this about as well as another 
When you excite him by contrasts and prick him with failures. 
This does not last long. I put it in just to amuse myself. 
To set myself up as the butt of my private ironies. 
Such seemed to be part of your duty and story, O Britain! 
Till you thought of the golden rule as an army and navy, 
Leaving others to covet your ownings and praise your new morals. 
Be leader and centre and friend of all independents, 
Of whom the world now has enough to make you independent 
Of any possible combination of cormorants 
By tariff or annexation of alien dominion. 
This is simply another phase of manifest destiny 
In asserting which my States will be first in supporting you. 
If any alien dislike this advice to Great Britain, 
Let him cut it out and post it straight ofif to his country. 
It will fit one nation or patriot as well as another. 
Cut out Britain and me, and put in your name and your country. 

93 



Even the open door is not so impartial as I am. 

Whosoever as god made the globe, made all equal partakers 

By commerce of local advantages outside their borders ; 

The more freely they trade with each other the richer their poorest; 

To enrich whom is the purpose of states, not to multiply Pluti. 

Guarantee their possessions ; then look on their ports as your harbors 

And those of all nations resenting commercial dictation. 

The champion of rights universal is always supported: 

That is an indefeasible law of existence 

And a source to the champion of moral and physical courage. 

Keep all ports open and free for all peoples in principle, 

And present recalcitrant states will reluctantly join you, 

But with a force standing forth in their very reluctance. 

International relations must henceforth be judged from this basis. 

Let such an alliance be felt, for it need not be wind-blown. 

And the coveter's wrath would pause aghast at its stature. 

The statesmen of bumpkindom cannot be right on all questions, 

And may not be wholly correct on any whatever. 

Let their major countrymen hold them as permanent minors! 

I take nothing for granted, whether you like or dislike it. 

These themes are too great to be sacrificed to politeness 

In discussion, although I do not intend to lack manners. 

Ever}lhing that God made I respect, when I deem that He made it. 

Everything that man made may be criticized as to motive 

As freely as to results, or to process or structure, 

Since best man, in the last analysis, is a devil 

In the buff, that is, stripped of the holiness donned for a winner. 

86. 

Swear not by the sanctimony of secular typo. 
Which by secular art is more winning than sacerdote polish. 
News is bought at the cost of money, or what is called probity, 
Singly or grouped, as the terms may be put of the holder. 
This is news to you if you chance to be new to the business. 
Sorry to let it out, but the popular mind needs some purging, 

94 



.And he who can purge it by telHng- a story is welcome. 
General Grant once threatened with death of the spy a great editor. 
His guest, whom he caught in the act of steaHng dispatches, 
Intending to risk them by wire, though the wires might be tapt there 
In the battle region of luka, where Grant's greatest fame is. 
Without pay, I give this as news to the public of nations, 
I could tell, should I choose, why the General pardoned the editor. 
But since Grant was transformed and transferred to invisible temple, 
-Let another name, if he will, the dehnquent. I will not. 

87. 

The world will outgrow admiration of chance choosing firstmen. 
Were they chosen because they are first the because would be different. 
But Chance has the merit of bringing out merit by chances, 
A distinction shared by no other power on its merits. 
Were the honors offered as guerdon of splendid achievement 
To leaders in action or thought up to higher attainment, 
Scoring some paces in forestep by genius or struggle, 
The choice would inspire the shout of a just acclamation, 
The irrepressible voice of complete satisfaction 
That Carl Schurz was elected instead of A. Tuff from the Tenderloin. 
But when it results from low chance in a factional fury, 
The firstman, soon as it reaches him, ought to decline it 
As protest on system so frequently vicious in turmoil, 
Kot the local turmoil of hustings, but national upsettings 
Of the industrial welfare which is really the life of a people. 
The force of example is felt not till after you setiit, 
O proud that no reasoning makes any impression upon you. 
Best man is the best, but too rare; next to him comes best system. 
But no system is equal to Oscar the Second of Sweden, 
A scheme complete in himself, all the equities humanized, 
Wholly fit to be trusted if no limitations existed. 
Diaz of Mexico, too, is surprisingly fit for his duties; 
He, like Augustus, is greater than consul or system. 
The nursery-delight in a firstman selected-by scramble 

95 



The world will outgrow, thus exhausting some seed of its folly,. 
And the systems of rage to the systems of sense will surrender. 
This pious event may seem far, but so once was salvation. 
As it is to-day for the gay-minded sinner light-hearted 
Who prefers the religion of pleasure to that of privation. 
New ideals become platitudes almost before they are printed, 
And your country may pass your defence of it ere you quit shouting.. 

88. 

.When an average amalgam is forced upon higher or lower 

By an agency seeming a trifle askew from God's order. 

You realize the ideal of unequal condition 

And will pay by revolt to restore the celestial intention. 

A generality this in a glittering uniform. 

I desire to say something solemn and not be ungraceful. 

Though far hence or near by, you will pay by a deep revolution 

Whereto causes you cannot descry at the first will impel you. 

Free will misdirected is always in search of punition. 

Or if it be not, fumbling chance seems directed against it. 

And free will with freedom to play it runs into sensation 

Till sermons themselves grow antagonistic as battleships. 

89. 

The least politics consistent with freedom the better. 
The tollmen on whom the world leans for prevention of anarchy 
Are tired of way-stations that slowly anticipate chaos. 
A deal gives the trumps to the tramps and they call it a triumph. 
Of course they dispraise not themselves nor depreciate their winnings. 
But how was their party equipt for political triumph? 
Suppose in the gamble the trumps had been dealt to the statesmen? 
Give us chance with a fact and the devil may cherish the reason. 
Lead us astray for a while; we can wait and forgive you, 
Because Christ so taught us, because of the worth of experience. 
Be great m-an if you choose; common sense is the popular genius, 

96 



And it smashes the shrine of New Heptarchy on the hustings, 
Thus asserting the import of earning as greater than talking. 
As seen in the sunbeam of safety the truth is most lustrous, 
Date-point of the waning light of some commonwealth's lunar, 
Which not only resist economic suggestion from monarchy 
But in democratic nam.e seek to ruin democracy, 
Setting up the man in the moon as their premier of finance. 
Or the toys of astrologers more than the products of state-chiefs. 
There we find warning quite sharply defined from example; 
The bayonet foreshadows sometimes between sections and races, 
Or duet of the white and black swans at the burial of hatred, 
As electorate may fumble with tenets and jargon of parties. 
While we wait for the hymn let us hold to our own as we know it, 
In the way we have lived, in the way we intend to maintain it, 
And then cast a glance of the pain we survive at the other. 

90. 

Not a pessimist litany, mine, but truth told as I find it. 
If that make you sad in advance of the epoch of sadness, 
Deem it a touch of experience by anticipation, 
Something luckily grasped from the future to ballast the present; 
Something to think on just now, and later to smile at. 
Overwise in the dark is the first to go blind when the light comes. 
Avoid sureness like his who, not having passed electro'thany, 
Wrote up that particular death as easy, and settled it. 
By the instant transformation of blood into charcoal. 
Let him be thrilled into thanatos for his irony, 
Into his grave for his sarcasm on euthanasia! 
Not upward the levels of gravitation, remember. 
Would to several god's that the mind senatorial could see this! 
Did your wisdom stop short, and your country's, when you were elected? 
Are you there for reward of the past, or for hope of the future? 
Did your election portend the tip end of advancement, 
Or was it rather a step of enlightened progression? 
Virtuous, gifted, expansive up to the day you were chosen, 

97 



t>o you selfishly fossilize in the seat of your honors, 
Debating good laws to death in a mausoleum of emeriti? 



91. 

The cranks of the state abound, and they love their symposium. 

Their sequents haunt the front door with a fine sense of mystery, 

Mistaking the noodles within for the gods of Walhalla, 

Preferring a peerage with them to an Outhalla dukedom. 

The philosophy is so simple of such an elysium 

That I wonder that any Briton gives ear to their speeches. 

Because they are content, the rest of the world should be happy. 

Or be made so by pow-wow of egoistic idealogue. 

But the sudden breath of a menace blows over some ocean 

And the pasteboard paradise falls on gods, nobles and noodles. 

I would not alarm if I could, but I tell you be ready ! 

I have nothing but wide observation ; no theory to bolster, 

And am political partisan only of winners 

Of office for keeping to Britons their commerce and empire. 

Hypocrites watch the maturity of your errors 

Just as one of them looked for mine, and caught me a-napping. 

Do not err in delay, nor in failing to face a word-hurricane. 

All schemes will be tried for lessening your naval activity. 

The enforcer of manifest destiny, and the spectre 

Of every tyrant enthroned and commercial monopolist. 

If what you possess were worth nothing, none would desire it. 

Your hour will be part of the day that shall find you unready, 

With a tricky friend turned into foe for a trickster's advantage. 

Waste not a dream of appealing to morals or honor. 

Take a semi-official denial of moral intentions 

And a wholly official assertion of nothing but business. 

Doubt not, I pray. I have talked with the enemy's sachems 

And find you not envied alone, but your properties coveted. 

Pretence is debated, but motives are learned in the cabinet. 

Economics instead of politics, freedom of commerce 

JBecause it is largest when freest; memorize the motto. 

9S 



There will be no more wars unless in strict order of business, 

Plowsoever hypocrisy may asphyxiate the motive. 

Japan's speculation on China sets the example, 

And that of France on the African island gigantic, 

With the ready nations only too ready to follow them; 

In this sense ready means relatively more ready. 

Does Britain wish this result at the price it will cost her? 

If not, be forever deaf to the statesmen symposian! 

Did you note that my States, as they dealt with the island of Cuba, 

Copied nothing from France v^'ith the island of Madagascar? 

92. 

Ye who find in my long limpid line neither frolic nor flattery, 

But rather offence to hypocrisy of the unready. 

Let yourselves soar and think down from the empyrean. 

The argonaut, even with the fleece, would seem small to the aeronaut. 

Who sees nothing in Jason except the stiff purpose of fleecing. 

And best equalizes the focus on wool, gold and politiGS. 

The common good is the thing; only one empire proclaims it. 

If the others accept, they uncover their share of the profits; 

If they refuse, they must cut up each other for selfishness, 

Augmenting the debts to be paid from the waste of their efforts, 

From the deserts left by the arid rage of their egoism. 

Is manifest destiny, then, with the despot or freeman? 

Long war between nations means civil wars at the end of it. 

For the ratepayers may no longer be taxed in the thousands of millions. 

Wealth does not augment in proportion to means of destroying it, 

And if deputies lose their heads, contribuables will correct them. 

This will help to eliminate youth as the factor of folly. 

For if all men were fifty years old there would be no fixt armies, 

If all men were fifty to vote and to fight and pay pensions. 

In what respect was St. Petersburg worse than Chicago? 

I am simply trying to circumvent the destroyer, 

Whose very best demonstration was made in Chicago, 

Because there the circumstances seemed least to suggest it. 

99 



Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he falleth. 
No hope in repubhc, the restless being freely admitted; 
It thus holds the same elements of unrest as a czardom, 
With more chances to crystallize restlessness into dynamite; 
Not to-day; when the people are elbowed out of their elbow-room, 
I mean: when the syndicates cannot employ half the hungry. 
The unequal distribution of what comes from freedom 
Leaves freedom half tyrant, irrespective of politics. 
A close corporation of lawyers governing Britain 
Not by the law, but their twist of it, measures our freedom. 
And the same prevails where Liberty shouts even loudiier 
And forever spells herself with a capital letter. 
Is this better than czar? Yes, so long as the lawyers are quiet. 
But woe to the kingdom and subject when they spread the law out. 
The tarantula web of the law with the lawyer to bite us. 
And our cousin far off with perhaps more of web and tarantula. 
The mass cares nothing for system, but yearns for sufficient. 
Political attachment is a matter of accident 
At first, then of pride, and later we deem it of principle. 
And of thrusting on those whose sole principle is a sufiEiciency. 
What is freedom? The right to prate of your slavery to money? 
That is a vacuum conception; rather a despot 
Who can smash an illusive negation even though he starve me! 
Surplus for those who kill time or do nothing works envy 
In those who furnish the surplus; and those who enjoy it 
Are morally bound to do nothing excitant of envy. 
In the land of the equal wealth sharpens the inequality 
Until the unequal win over again their first triumph. 
The justified scheme in the end is the monarchy graded. 
Compact in economics, non-debatable subjects 
Being augmented in number as Britons grow clearer, while fury 
Of discussion and scandal political be left with the boastful. 
All this is the dilettante-screed of a courtier. 
I have no plan, but am out for a little excursion. 
As a change, to the realm of the discontented; an empire 
Bigger even than Britain's, and not to be conquered nor governed 

100 



By any system yet worked in political science. 
My love of court-life makes me friend of the order established. 
The change I desire is personal and brief; am discussing- 
Like any know-it-all between fool and philosopher. 

93- 

Wrinkled thinker undying, thou linker of generations 

For all that upholds and expands and extends outside chaos, 

Flinging the searchlight into the gloom of inertia, 

Do not despair in the wear of a duty unending. 

Since every tangible value begins with the thinker. 

If I think topics through to defeats, you may think to successes. 

The titan is not a god, neither wholly a mortal. 

The pioneer mind is midway heroic-titanic; 

Its views belong half to its epoch, half to a future. 

The blood of the martyrs is ever the seed of opinion 

That germinates, and then of conviction that fashions. 

The leader's idea is likewise the seed of the fortune 

Which in the Autumn of Fate comes another to garner. 

But these truths augment not the funds, nor dimm.ish the labor 

Of him who soweth new fields and reapeth after the gleaners. 

The hope of reward grows intense in proportion to vagueness, 

And the Hall of the Gods is not full ; always room on Olympus. 

Those who cannot die are as generous as immortal. 

While with us you have only to win to turn foes into flunkeys. 

The achievers of deeds of renown, by the dictum of Schiller, 

May ascend to the seat of the gods and be sure of proud welcome. 

And so full of the South and the North is the genius of Schiller 

That his immiortality as a guest is divided 

Between the hosts of Olympus and those of Walhalla, 

94- 

Revolutions never go back, says the thinker thoracic. 
I wish they would always go back to the cause of the evils 

101 



And stay there on permanent guard to prevent their recurrence. 
What other trip could they take and be half so successful? 
If revolution would do the work of policemen, 
Preventing disorder instead of inflaming disturbance, 
We should all recommend it as outlet for popular passions. 
If numbers be right because numbers, set fire to your Oxfords, 
Or to any schools newer and wiser productive of thinkers 
Whose inspiration is not derived from pulmonics, 
Or from baffled rage, like that of Coqcourt at new friendship; 
He whose race seeks the place of the Englishman as the tyrant; 
Belting the earth with ecclesiastical dogma 
And secular, and its ethnical sway; whose affiliation 
With others is mere affectation, a wile of its genius. 
The class, like the mass, is perfect in natural sequence, 
Howsoever the gog of an epoch may seek to mislead you. 
Why not tell the truth that the masses exist to make classes 
Outside the fictions and fustian of doctrinaire-stumpers? 
V/hat else gives the chance to ascend? If born in a cellar, 
Would yon live there forever by virtue of loving the masses? 
I ask this because weary of epigrammatic tomfooling. 
Even the demagogue seeks the apostolate of ascension. 
No matter how small he may be, when he gets a majority 
His minority may go to the devil if he but stay winner. 
Is this loving your race? It is; with yourself as the head of it. 
Do you know any statesman who seeks to go back to the cellar? 
The lover of his race loves to see it make fortunes 
In individual instances, he being the foremost; 
Mr. Croker of Manhattan explained this with glory. 
Since it cannot do differently, what is the use of professing? 
Any institutions inductive of false economics 
Ought to be modified; monarchic or democratic. 
Populist, socialist, millionist; names frighten cowards, 
And suggest to brave minds in our day the prompt need of analysis. 
Any free system is far from its logical issue. 
Mere Canute of politics staying the tide of opinion; 
For, though I define not his purpose, Canute is there always. 

102 



The class which shall perfectly govern by free constitution 

Will be the best gift of all movements, forward or sideways, 

And I leave your great mind to the office of calling that class up. 

And of framing a constitution uniting all great minds. 

But such must be new constitution, ignoring all prior. 

Manifest destiny lays out the land; ruling parchments come later. 

95- 

Minorities mine, if you think of invading their strongholds.' 
The Spaniard could do it in theory, but had not the money 
To practice with; let us say a good word for the vanquished. 
I do not wish to hurt of my States the tall feelings. 
But the Spaniard's capacity to die for his standards. 
Overmatched though he knew that he was, has no equal in history. 
And will be lustrous there when his weaknesses all are forgotten! 
The only Swiss pass is mined between Gallia and Germany, 
And the Swiss has declared he will spring it if enemies step there- 
It prevents not invasion, but tends to discourage the project. 
Whether you undertake it by land or by water. 
The men on the ground can make the best use of torpedoes, 
Whether on surface of land or sea, or below it. 
While the men in the air can most easily drop devastation. 
And veterans cannot be bred against annihilation. 
Thus dynamite disheartens the heartiest seaman or landman. 
The overwhelming of freemen will never be picnic, 
And extermination by science has no moral limit, 

Science having absorbed no soft functions while floating some hard ones. 
Europe does not desire that Britain be stronger in Europe. 
Some great continental ministers gave me the reasons. 
It would need a very fresh diplom.at to contest them; 
One of genius much greater than he who last lost by his genius 
All that he sought to attain in the Northern Pacific ; 
And Canrobert and Macmahon later approved them; 
Not seriatim, although full of force were their judgments. 
To overreach is the act of small men, not of great ones; 

103 



He who wins not thereat 'comes political bummer and blufifer. 

You love your country no better for roaring about it. 

Popularity without principle will justify anything. 

The strait-jacket is the true fit for the patriot-ranter. 

Let us stop war by making it so that no man can live in it ; 

That of all the millions who go to it, every man shall perish. 

In the States opinion favored annihilation 

In Cuba, but, of course, as applied to the enemy only ; 

To exterminate the foe is to shorten the conflict, 

But the foe has no right to annihilate the philanthropist. 

This is true morals and mercy, and would render superfluous 

Armies, navies, peace-congress, and the childish sort of patriotism. 

96. 

A statesman is a contractor who does for his country 

Something new in an enterprise not yet attempted by others, 

Or a great man of public aiifairs in routine; perchance brilliant; 

Not a superfluous speaker nor wind-cloudy egotist. 

But brilliant in measures when state combinations demand it. 

Let the rising generation evolve a new prophet 

If the mass is to be released from its slavery to formules! 

Present human intelligence is enough for its purpose 

When it works as machine, but too small for the larger conceptions, 

Too narrow and low for our sovereign immortal pretension. 

Life, liberty and the pursuit or the shoot of the happy 

Will be realized as soon as you shoot your false premises. 

No declaration is needed, but simply true premises. 

Declare independence on all prior such declarations. 

Each man then could argue himself nito all the beatitudes 

Without aid of saints, comic editors, patriots or heroes. 

Each would be some of these in himself, with each woman a columbine. 

But, lo my defect as a prophet, I cannot establish them ! 

97- 

May a hero be vile in all else save performance heroic, 
A fellow who makes us regret that such fellov/ is hero 

104 



By the chance that mantled the prior parts of his record? 
Some affirmative instances speak and they sadden me deeply 
As Cincinnatus, a hero at eighty, rebukes them; 
pincinnatus, a farmer Italian and hero at eighty. 
Born curly his name means, although we have deemed him born titan; 
Latin sounds not always suggest corresponding significance. 
The sublime of consuls; as soldier the victor of Volsci 
When no other could be either trusted or tried for the duty; 
A lover of his race with nothing to sell to it; 
As dictator the friend of such race without class, and the idol, 
Yet more glorified for resigning than taking the office; 
Never professor of duty, but ever a doer; 

The best man in Rome who became of its worst law the victim, 
And in beauty of person quite up to his stature in morals; 
Who for fault of his son paid his riches in base confiscation, 
And still vanquished disgust in its strife with his strict love of country; 
Who retired without pension to follow the plow for a living; 
I was told that instead of seeking a pension he spurned it; 
And, recalled, saved the state after twenty-one days' saturnalia. 
And resumed at four score the opening of furrows of freedom; 
Aged son of a land of more heroes and martyrs than Europe, 
And father forever of shining and standard example 
Who sought nothing of fame, yet the model most famous of heroes, 
Ancient fiamen and lumen of ray still of longest projection! 
Wert thou living to-day as plow-hero near big Manahatta, 
Not a Tammanimig would vote thee a pension or office. 
Though there office requires not equipment nor pension a duty. 
While thou wast equipt for all duty and worth any pension. 
Yet Coqcourt would explain thee away as afifecting poor virtue 
And patronize thee with his unction personal and ethnic. 
Another appears who might have repeated the Roman; 
His station was equal; we hoped that the man was not lower; 
Yet he went to his grave m a glamour of glorified sorrow 
With a biographic stain which no splendors obfuscate. 
Let us thank private gods we are not thus heroic and public. 
Lazare Carnot on Napoleon fills my conception 

105 



Of duty really heroic: yet Carnot died in exiles 

Are the Roman and Frenchman the objects of pity and sarcasm? 

I could make some comparisons not very flattering to moderns 

Unless we admit that patriotism oug:ht to be .paid for, 

But I forbear because I dislike to be personal' 

9& 

Call the test-captain of Marcus \'ipsanius Agrippa 

At Actium; he hints at no claims, but we are all proud to see him. 

There were too many ships on both sides for neglect in that battle. 

He could not be signalled, he knew what to do, and he did it; 

In a crisis unlooked-for was quick and correct in his action. 

Had he been elsewhere the day had belonged to Antonius. 

This was a hero who deemed his heroism mere duty. 

The man could not beg. and Augustus did not promote him, 

Augustus, great in procuring great service from others. 

Some peoples breed delicacy as to mention of service, 

And their proceres* smell not a pension in warsmoke at lecNvard; 

Nor did Mpsanius, sea-pride of the Roman dominion, 

Who, had he not won, had been some sort of victim Tarpeian, 

And who for his Cfesar did more than that Caesar in empire ; 

Augustus, fame-swollen when poets, not critics, were published, 

The purple king of the lofty minions of letters. 

The fav.Tiing penmen of multiform splendor imperial,. 

Flaccus and Maro and those who imposed him on history. 

The captain died and left to his children the sideknife 

\Miich in an immodest hand had carved them a fortune ^ 

But in their father's had car\-ed for their country a triumph. 

Had Antonius and he fought together and won. he was admiral, 

Since Antonius was greater in nothing than fervor of friendship. 

Unless in unfriendly pursuit of inimical gentry. 

I am the worthless friend of the fame of that captain. 

And I think maybe patriotism ought to have a cash value 

* Spanish : signifying heroic characters. 

106 



As I ask myself: Is that a dominion worth saving 

Wliich leaves unrewarded the winning shipmaster of Actium 

Who could not frame a request for promotion nor pension? 

99. 

Let me give you for contrast a little sea-story not Roman; 

Modern, unique, monumental, unknown, and immortal. 

What is called nerve is called for by stress, and is useful, 

As at Actium we saw, and are now about to see elsewhere; 

But whenever you praise it remember the test of its glory 

And praise God when he keeps you away from the stress that requires it. 

I once knew a pirate who 'scaped his deserts on the gallows, 

In contumaciam condemned and a big reward offered. 

By staying awake from Manhattan down to Havana 

And threatening the captain with death if he 'bouted the steamer, 

Prescribing for Sundberg, my friend, navigation by pistol. 

He knew the course, and he day and night guarded the compass. 

He was nervy indeed, this man doomed to be hanged for his record. 

The Thermopylae man was a thrippenny fellow to Bowen, 

Who alone beat a government and a crew of three hundred. 

This slaver, who later became a mail agent and shootist 

And represented his country's worst side on an isthmus. 

Many Britons remember him well and his pistol too ready. 

I met him at Panama; he returnd to Manhattan 

Years later, a famine-clipt corsair ignored by detectives. 

Where I blew him off several times, for which he was grateful, 

And repaid me with sea-yarns fit to raise hair on bronze Julius. 

I love to give credit for gameness even to a pirate, 

Though deeply regretting that Bowen could jump the republic. 

While avowing my fascination with quarter-deck dragon. 

Xerve is useful, I say; but God grant me more honest conditions; 

Conditions more in accord with sea-conduct at Actium. 

100. 

The Augustan age: of what? Of glory and meanness. 
Long forgotten were nephew Marcellus excepting for Maro. 

107 



•Great poets find great virtues easy for nephews of greatness. 
At twenty married and dead, his achievement was promise 
In a period conspicuous even till this day for performance. 
However, in the .Eneid he makes a sweet story, 
For which I am paganly grateful, the bard was made richer; 
^lore paganly thankful since Christians are treated less justly. 
But whv was my Captain of Actium so meanly omitted? 
If I knew his name I would make him a bigger jMarcellus 
Hian either of those who loom and shine high for the Romans. 
Could Marcus Mpsanius Agrippa descend to be envious? 
Could Octavianus Augustus deign to be whimsical? 
Although old, I was not in politics at that period. 
And would rather not speculate now on those royal hob-nobbers. 

lOI. 

Prom these instances tell me what think you of thanks? Who is grateful, 

And who is requited of those who deal with the patria? 

He who builds on past favors and luck the ideal of his merits, 

And, as the proverb explains it, his hopes of the future? 

I incline to electoral veterans who vote themselves pensions 

As the best requited and most successful of patriots. 

Had I seen somewhat less than I have, I should be less suspicious. 

Though suspicion is far from best proof of the largeness of knowledge. 

And then I prefer to put queries ; less aggressive the form is. 

And the object more easily won, than by statement dogmatic. 

I once saw a man washed over the rail in a seaway. 

A thousand pounds to the sailor who saves me from drowning, 

He shouted; Bob Halfyard jumped into the sea swift to rescue, 

Ignoring reward, and hauled him on deck by the collar, 

Wliere this thousand-pound man straightway thanked himself free with a 

fiver. 
Thus gratitude goes by dry measure, and prom/se by fluid. 
But Bob was well pleased, and, indeed, would have been with no measure; 
Tliough the distance from five to a thousand is out of all measure. 
But if gratitude show between nations, the same will surprise me. 

lOS 



Coqcourt says that Great Britain patronized somebody lately. 

This will call, of course, not for gratitude, but resentment. 

Though 'tis merely a wile of his race and his personal genius. 

Obligation is hard to admit, but resentment comes easy. 

And is the most dignified thing in the dealings of nations. 

I admire natural bigness; it saves us the trouble which smallness 

Inflicts in compelling the undersized self-assertion. 

Resources more than readiness set the world thinking. 

The German Empire is ready; my States are unready; 

Although General Shafter would probably say to the Germans 

That they had no right to fight, as he said to Toral at Santiago ; 

With no lack of respect for Shafter, this was Falstaffian. 

But in the long tug the States would be ready and richer. 

The last man conscripted, last cartridge in breech of last rifle. 

The last franc expended, how do you stand as to resource? 

But the sword of Cassius Marcellus, the fist of Fitzsimmons 

Need not be swung; you take it all back when you see them. 

Taxability more than big guns is the fear of the nations; 

The power to impose and collect is the theme of reflection. 



102. 

A chump and a hero when dead are the same to their country, 
But the hero did something deemed a distinctive example. 
Though he may have been ten times a chump outside his example,. 
As a has-been he is embalmed to inspire future whoopers. 
All countries produce them and play them off one 'gainst another, 
And that, with the sacred flag buncombe, breeds up other heroes, 
As Eagleshriek, Katkofif, Deroulede, Lionroar, Novisto, 
And debt, death and taxes and pensions to pay for the triumph. 
And thus labor pays to make heroes and wealthy contractors. 
Commissions, investigations, courts-martial and glory. 
Better be taxed for court-royal with jester attachment. 
Or set the clown up as the king with a fun-constitution. 
How long, O Lord, how long shall thy children charge bayonets? 
Must they ride through another old testament of dull vices, 

109 



Thereon to arrive at a new testamentary promise? 

Is patriotism even a greater satire than conscience? 

Not necessarily that which is aged is sacred; 

Those under its rule may have been too weak to renounce it, 

The weak millions oppressing the single strong wills through the cycles, 

The strong wills deficient in nothing but numbers and muscles, 

While the cardinal bandmasters fascinated the faithful; 

Or rich vestrymen giving the heads of discourse to the parson. 

These things are all right; but something more right might replace them. 

I believe in emancipation, but first in a substitute 

For the good as well as the bad of the system discarded, 

Be the same pagan or not. The chief good of religion 

Is that some men and more women are able to draw from it 

A negative beauty and benefit, whereof the absence 

Would leave th^cn less happy, less brave, and less fit to be trusted. 

This alone would sufficiently justify any religion; 

But God send us another whose life shall be wholy affirmative 

In the activities as well as the prayers of professors. 

103. 

The Cambrian, Caledonian, Hibernian have done noble service 
Around the globe; but others are not less in service; 
And all, for defence and offence and mistakes, the Queen's subjects. 
But you men not of Wales, nor of Scotland, nor Ireland, but England, 
Do not forget that your basis of empire is English ; 
Not that England is better, but larger, more suited to centre; 
More homogeneous as to both centre and numbers ; 
That the others helped grandly to build on the basis of England, 
Adopting the tongue, its pervasiveness, usefulness, glories; 
And that if you should set one not English up as its Premier, 
Perfectly loyal, let it be granted him, only not English, 
Who might gamble England as well as the others to smash it. 
In loyalty all, but still in gigantic niisjudgment. 
In hatred unaffected of possible bloodguilt. 

And in access of that sort of conscience which let Gordon perish, 

110 



The fault would be not of the Scol, nor the Welsh, nor the Celto, 

But of you, ye goad-kicking EngUshmen, mulish and fatuous. 

Some names are ballooned, and stay up by the gas of orations. 

Let not high name blow you low to the system of wigwam! 

Even Manhattan absorbs, sloughing tribesmen and wigwam. 

The big town whose imported statesmen preach our disunion 

Consolidates over the heads of these freaks of disruption. 

In the three kingdoms the English alone are non-tribal. 

Let nobody tear his hair at this fact; nature willed it. 

As among Italian tribes she willed Romans non-tribal. 

Larger, more homogeneous, more central, more numerous. 

Like Japan, better fitted for sabre-glint civilization. 

Do not get red in the face, neither sprain your thoracics; 

Perchance civilization has failed, and tribe-life shall supplant it 

With some Sitting Bull as a later leader of progress. 

Silver Bryan, or Brian Boru, around pot-au-feu dancing 

With shillelagh as primitive symbol of ruling uncomplex 

Resurrected, with friends in cotilion; so showing example 

Of life democratic by royal decree for the faithful. 

Freedom-shouting, while seeking the Englishman's place in dominion. 

But without open door in trade, politics and religion. 

104. 

Keep your flag as a symbol imperial; not as a gewgaw 
To decorate up to significance things low and trivial. 
Let it be never a ribbon, but always an emblem 
Denoting a purpose inflexible, sacred, invincible, 
Not to be idly affirmed, and still less idly yielded. 
Among many things of God's meaning, one is authority, 
In which he seems not to design that the Briton be second. 
Plant the flag with care, but keep it there with solicitude. 
Suspend not him who shall hold to the law of the neutral. 
Extol not him whose folly demands his dismissal. 
Veteran statesmen rave not about turpitude among nations; 
They define it in other terms, but rather expect it. 

Ill 



Old freshmen new to state dignities are the fellows 

Who put up the rigs and pretend to be shocked at resentment. 

Leave a point to suggestion; what else is so flat as exha-ustion? 

The world loveth only to laugh at Columbus of mare's nest. 

Trip luckily on a silver spur in the underbrush 

And then suddenly loom as the finance brain of a forum, 

By ironic nerve of aiiinity intellectual. 

If there be sermons in stones there are yarns in stone silver. 

And the legislative mine-owners know how to spin them. 

I put this fact into the history of this period. 

There are schemes which would not be heard of unless for the affinity 

Whereby the toe suggests to the mind of the finder 

That the foot as well as the head may touch off an idea. 

The poor man's interest consists in electing the millionaire, 

Whether the choice be the poor man's or that of his Plutus. 

He who has not made his pile is not fit to make statutes; 

So told me my private Lothair, who could not imagine 

The man of the pile making laws against him of no pile. 

Riches soften the heart in the estimation of Pluti; 

Do not exceptions like Salt, Alills and Peabody prove it? 

Poor men legislating for poor men have failed to enrich them. 

The centuries are overladen with proofs of this verity. 

Xow let rich men make laws for all men, and see who will go winners! 

104^. 

Conformably with both union and manifest destiny, 
And as prepotent sign of political zodiac 
Among continents, oceans and nations, let the republic 
Constellate into one giant star those stars individual 
Which in tlie uniting field of the flag denote empire 
Of many sovereign commonwealths whose sovereignty 
Was absorbed to make a monarchy of democracy 
So far as its foreign relations go. which go everywhere. 
This would give to the flag greater beauty, and much more significance 
As to the inescapable dominance of manifest destiny, 

112 



And more pointed, of course, because every star is five-pointed. 
Multiply the points, Mighty Congress, and lawniake to fit them 
For this greater beauty of banner, and the strength of intention 
To swing out from the prepaternal impositions of purpose 
Which were very good to begin with, but are no good to end with. 

105. 

I wish to ask something concerning the palate and ethics, 
Yet not to hurt any man's taste nor to injure his commerce. 
Vv'hy should we hold the wine-merchant a species of fetich. 
The sphynx of the bottle, the artifex of potation? 
Is it due to inherited dream of the glory of drinking 
The fluescent fun of some regions more sunny than Britain? 
Imagination is active in ratio to absence 

Of the things imagined and wanted; and as to the cave-dwellers 
The sunbeams are, so to us 4s the juice of the sun-grape. 
Since the sun puts both flavor and force in the fruit of his favor, 
And we thus get some sun which is otherwise partly denied us. 
A roundabout way to account for our love of the stimulant! 
But the sun's side of wine is not that of the gentry who sell it. 
Xative men in sun-regions are sparing in use of the best of it. 
There is nothing in wine, any wine, excepting the alcohol. 
The juice unfermented I know; there is nothing more funless. 
Take the alcohol out, no one cares for bouquet nor for savor, 
And alcohol grows in the cactus as well as the grapevine; 
So I found by liquescent run of the cactus in Mexico; 
And he who goes short of Yquem may go long yet of pulque. 
Do we thus worship wine for its gout and intoxication, 
Flavored, colored and labeled to suit with mere alcohol basis? 
Then your fetich is, after all, but a limited chemist. 
Now who will wax eloquent in defence of this chemist 
Who alcoholizes the tongue and the pen which defend him, 
The father of gout, the long pride and the joy of old statesmen. 

U3 



io6. 

The music of nature is minor, but I like it major, 
Or did, till a Chinaman gave me some novel ideas. 
Why is it minor? Is sadness organic in nature, 
And is art by the devil forced to be gleeful and major? 
Maybe yet we do not correctly interpret the devil. 
Love of music is weakness expressive of slow evolution, 
Mere worship of sound, of the power which is most evanescent, 
The mock-joss of a moment, expired ere its worship is ended. 
Gliding even unseen from the faithful kneeling to nothing; 
Leaving them, thus to say, as adorers posing in ridicule. 
So told me Mandarin, Pynq Bhuttun, a Prince of Manchuria. 
Wu-Ying-Ding do I sing ; hard to bring in the ring of my verse-fling. 
We took a world's fair and two weeks for our little diversion. 
Discussing battleships, arts, ballots, bullets and ballets, 
Science, biography, lies, legends, music and silence, 
And the prince deemed the last most becoming the larger number, 
Sarcastic and cynical he as a peer of the Occident, 
No Frenchman could reach him in persiflage upon Europe. 
The richest man I have known: forty millions of guineas. 
And more free in expending than even the author of Vathek. 
Beyond all men a scion of luck was this scion of Asia, 
And as gentleman not the inferior of any in England. 
He was happy and young; death seemed not created to touch him. 
My regal Manchurian; as classic of type as Apollo, 
But not of Greek mold; there is beauty by eastward of Hellas; 
Nor was he born to grow old, and his smile was organic, 
An Eos of pensiveness sequent on every emotion 
Of mine orient Tithonus of the gift unforgotten. 
His sleep was as deep as the absence of care in his being, 
Yet no depth of repose could eliminate it from his features, 
And his words were of worlds full of everything but the painful 
Unless when he spoke of the spooks that fill this with displeasures. 
I might not have doubted, though recently only I learned it. 
That the fool is a finer buffoon in the halls of Manchuria 

114 



While my practice has been so to lean as to themes beatific, 

Still his joy was so absolute that it made me quite serious; 

And my monograph on the mirthful refilled him with wonder 

As he strove to descend to the level of what I deemed cheerful; 

Which filled me with pride in my friend as new wit and new critic. 

His inheritance came from a period prior to Confucius 

And from collateral millionaires all over China. 

He was easy in wealth as distinguished from Midas in metal, 

High mind and high fate being naturally part of each other. 

Not of one in a million with million can this be said justly, 

But no trait of Occident corporate president seared him, 

No terror supplying from bank-note the mandates of Moses, 

Nor by wealth-written statutes making of wealth a new Bible. 

Why does no gifted Chinaman deign to explain us his country? 

Is it due to his scorn of our hypocritic pretensions. 

Or to a pride that might set an example to Satan? 

Or does he, like Li Hung Chang, praise all faiths, having no faith? 

A book by my prince would sell by the hundred thousand. 

But he loftily sneered as I tried to persuade him to write one, 

Commenting that books in his country are not things ephemeral. 

But let me resume his petit resume about music. 

I am sorry I never evolved at the pace of his highness. 

Not far from my window in Summerhouse Circus in London 

A great-granddaughter lives who is learning to thrum the piano. 

I love the sweet girl with the pride of a fanciful dotard. 

Though 'tis but in mine eye and mine age that I find the relation, 

Since I merely bow as we meet to her father and mother. 

She is always in town for the season, and then takes her lessons, 

And her lesson-days are those when all windows are open. 

Her voice is seraphic; why does she not sing and stop thrumming? 

If her father were not so clever and quick I should ask him. 

And yet any process of sound-study maddens a region, 

Transforms a popular girl, makes a guy of a goddess. 

China is large, but not large enough for Dick Wagner. 

So it saddens my soul to confess that the outside barbarians 

Do not rise to the ethnical level of him of Manchuria. 

lis 



107- 

Wherefore fight against orient open door, Mr. Coqcourt? 

Indeed, one might ask why a people permits you to fight there? 

My Manchu noble bespoke it ere Britain proposed it. 

He was tariff-for-revenue-only, all doors being open; 

That was his deep, wide and wise economic conviction. 

If you do not care to go in, is it selfish that I go? 

Or if others would go, is your wish to stand still a sound reason 

Why they should stay out to their loss and let somebody shut it? 

Rebellion within the Three Kingdoms is not in this question, 

Nor shall it be raised in One by an open-door issue. 

All free peoples with livings to earn are aboard with Great Britain,, 

First among them the people with whom you took citizen-ticket; 

But of course not the few whose fortunes depend on misleading. 

Do not labor to make a gratuitous case as a lawyer, 

Since lav/ is not here involved, but a principle mighty 

Evolving new law, wheretD you may adjust your grand genius, 

Grand as practician political outside the verities. 

To v.-in, you attribute false motives; but you will be beaten, 

And your faction, although with fine feelings none of you quiver. 

I simply note that you fly in the face of two peoples. 

Besides, in your country you are but alien as patriot. 

Solidarity of one race against all is your principle; 

Solidarity of one race 'gainst the rest in your country. 

Are you vain enough to presume that the rest will surrender? 

But open door will lapse into spheres of in-flooence. 



io8. 

There is too much esteem in the world for the stuff merely literary. 
Other sinner is not quite so sinful as author professional. 
Books merely as books are less useful than trousers as trousers^ 
His principal good is in setting up jobs for the typos, 
Who would gladly set up superior stuff could they find it, 

116 



Though they must earn pay, if only by waiting for copy. 

An author should write as a populist speaks, when moved to it; 

When he must speak or die; die as martyr to inspiration, 

Or of apoplexy resulting from bottled emotion. 

Besides, books so written, like speeches so spouted, take better. 

So that sincerity, or more properly bluntness, is higher • 

In strict market price than indifference or diplomacy 

Well dressed as to literary form and in binding luxurious. 

Although I am moved to these stanzas for human approval, 

I do not in all instances expect to attain it. 

But he whose first element is largeness of purpose 

And who can see sarcasm sanctified to ideals. 

Will give me the slap of approval and hope for me others. 

If by incidence money come too, I shall gather that likewise. 

Do not hurry in reading this book ; I did not in printing it. 

109. 

To catch comprehension, the first need of statement is clearness, 
Unless you be genius enough to substitute mystery, 
And best liked of all the clear forms is that of the epigram. 
Either science or whatever else might attack the tympanies, 
Could I have my way, should be stated in epigram simple, 
Or in series of sentences every one epigrammatic. 
If it cannot be sprung on the mind in that form, it is no gram. 
Yet produce not a Frankenstein book, for that eats up the author. 
You are literate enough when you write with ease and precision 
And devote your spare time to the few works not areas of mind-waste. 
The milliner of words is a poor feeble fellow 
Who should have been girl and written society novels. 
The book of industrial success is the manual for nations, 
The material Bible whereon to build up the moral ; 
But all the prophets alive seem unable to write it, 
The book which should make us irremovably equal 
And happy, abolishing millionaires, strikers and paupers, 
Walking delegates. Sitting Bulls, and mock and moth chieftains, 

117 



All classes and persons who could object to each other; 
Thus reaching the thousandth year by suppressing cross purposes. 
So eliminating the cause and the curse of transgression. 
Not always are natural powers brought forth by high grammars. 
Your college-man's greatness is commonly lost in the learning 
That in him takes the place of the evolution of nature 
Which curricula are only designed to develop. 
Inspiration i's affectation and genius is humbug 
When author and publisher grovel in greed of the guinea. 
My publisher and I are both free from small vices. 
Yet such parties make literature thus, and the world is made wiser 
From a horn of plenty of words for a few dozen shillings. 
They supply a demand without raising the grade of the market; 
That is the very worst mare's nest I ever discovered. 
If the men who make history could write it, the lessons were clearer 
And stronger, but life is too brief for the two occupations. 
The insular and Peninsular Napier confirms me, 
And Julius the commentator; but they are exceptions. 
Thus, though the exemplars are strong, the teachers are feeble 
Till the chronicler shall be as strong as the doer. 
If you cannot win Austerlitz, overrate him who did win it: 
Omit estimating inferior foe's drill and commanders 
Unless to count these defects part of his genius who beat them. 
Write as though you were making him great, like Thiers in his Consulate, 
And later, like Thiers, you may sit in the seat of the Consul. 
Use blind admiration for library-points in his greatness 
Whom you have not understood, and make no allowance 
For the vogue into which he slipped from three thousand conditions. 
And be careful to see nothing great in the man who subdued him. 
If you cannot win battles, you may jabber of him who won many. 
Till a moth's reputation expand with the fame of the giant. 
The size and sweep of the thought are the matters impressive 
And compel their own symmetry and sufficiency of expression. 
Bear in mind that your mind must be big enough for the subject. 
You may not be partial at first to the thought or its treatment, 
But improve your gifts, though there be little joy in the labor. 

118 



Michael Angelo lacked the polish he put in his art-works, 

Yet they shine with the merits as dear to the small as the great minds. 

Vast and lucid conceptions force into form their own character. 

IIO. 

I may not decide Allighieri greater than MicLael, 

Though to write the Commedia was harder than cutting out Moses. 

I am not seeking to get up a fight about greatness, 

Though I care not if such succeed; we shall each have our partisans. 

To formulate thought is a finer process than sculping, 

Involving less of the chance mixt with impulse called genius, 

While we do not forget that of thought sculpture also is formful. 

If expression be larger with words, so the task of achieving. 

Language exacts more than stone, the pen more than the chisel. 

This settles nothing, but suggests settling something by fighting. 

If it be not clear, perchance it is chiaro oscuro. 

And so may procure me some little repute as a critic. 

He who settles anything is not deemed a critic. 

But rather Columbus of Guanahani for the doubtful. 

Let Italia say, if she can, whose renown is the dearer. 

Ill 

Your strict man of letters is mainly a puffer of letters, 
Seedily crazed with his craft and with print-panaceas, 
A secular priest of the inspiration sympo'sian. 
Like the sacerdote, wholly in favor of keeping his church up; 
Each man his own church, yet an aggregate church on the people 
By all of them quartered in monthlies and weeklies and dailies. 
For the making of all men happy, and always by letters. 
No two sacerdotes, no two worldly-wise Cadmi agreeing. 
One writes a book that finds a big vogue, though its merits 
Might justify either a bigger vogue or a lesser. 
'Tis the luck of the vogue wherewith I de'sire to impress you. 
Then he finds the great head and makes introspection a study, 

119 



After which he devotes his career to developing ego, 

And all literature is straightway enriched by this product. 

Yet with thousands of tons of books and millions of flysheels 

Whirring widi practical wisdom, the curse of transgression 

Seems no lighter nor likeher to fly nor be flown than it once was. 

Yea. this age. most belettered of all, is the age of the Anarch, 

Of the dynamite-keg rolled into the Sundayschool circle, 

Or into the operahouse, talkinghouse or cathedral. 

And no other age. I proclaim, so infected with wisdom, 

No era since Plato so thickly infested with letters 

By sacerdotes and by secular priests of symposium 

Who prate of our sorrows, suggesting no means that relieves them, 

Precisely as I prate to-day of the lack of suggestion. 

These lines refer to some men who 'came statesmen from letters, 

And the argT.mient is to revert to those not men of letters, 

Xot essayists of symposium to carry Our Empire, 

Not rhetoricians who foster a hostile alliance. 

\Miose piety seems to invoke our commercial destruction, 

But to revert to those who see ^i^•als and pass them, 

Xo matter what be the cause, so they grasp not our profit. 

The Briton is forced to be Tory by site geographic 

And by appetites which Exeter Hall cannot satisfy; 

Pantheon of theists gone blind with the rage of reforming, 

^^"alhalla of bards who foresee the redemption intangible, 

\\'ho would wreck empire to save up a phrase from Utopia. 

These lofty abstractions result in despair at the concrete. 

The bard is a lovely boy with the gift of delusion. 

As, since I began this book, Tolstoi calls the patriot; 

Dear and deep old Tolstoi; so delighted to find you are with me! 

\\"ithout naming these poets I love them, vet pray you beware of them, 

These vagarists of printsheets who flatter themselves they are statesmen. 

But scarce to be blamed, since what else is so sweet as illusion! 

112. 

The Golden Age? A sweet snare; but what age would dismiss it? 
An ancient dream older than Golden Fleece is the title, 

120 



With the era itself best described in Torquato's Aminta, 

It seems; and it seems further ofif than when Tasso described it; 

An Age Tra-la-la full of sweetness and light and no evil. 

Where the will was the law and no will was inspired by the devil. 

They might do all they chose, and they did all they pleased, and no trouble. 

But should it arrive in my time 1 should burn up this cadence, 

Exhorting impersonal egoists to do likewise, 

And sing anew of the vision of Tasso and talkmills. 

To magnify speeches eternal in councils and vestries, 

To facilitate preparation of Premiers by thousands, 

And to poise the age of gold on the pillars of rhetoric 

Till Torquato's bright dream should seem merely pavilion of thunder. 

But till science shall set us free of imported food-products, 

From apparent nothing evolved like the motor of Keely, 

I insist on alliance of Exeter Hall with the sailors. 

Which will insure our whole people enough food to live on, 

To defend the ideal although we may never attain it, 

La bella eta dell' oro ancora lontano. 

Mr. Butler of Rome called Tiziano a shover of putty 

And in the same breath ranked him up with the greatest of painters. 

George at Rome shoved the putty himself and was not disrespectful; 

A gifted man may not be judged by the common conditions. 

Yet some, second only to Titian, are tramps to their trousers. 

Why is this thus? I am weary of digging for reasons. 

Art, as a fact, is the mistress of tramps mtellectual. 

But not of the kindred of George and Vernet and Giorgione, 

I do not aver she is false, nor her followers unfaithful. 

But she does not insure the result that should tally with effort; 

Yet in freak she might rate a Lebrun by the side of Murillo 

And leave George to distribute his time between painting and cheese-vats. 

This is not right, though my friend does not need any favors. 

If a canvas go slow, a few tons of cheese bring an income. 

But some fellow not gifted like George should attend to the cheese-vats. 

121 



Thus whether a whim or a fraud on the sons of devotion, 
Or sarcastic priestess of chisel, brush, marble and putty, 
Art ought to average better reward to her votaries. 

114. 

Employ not the language of Mars as the phrases of Hermes; 
It is apt to defeat the presumpiive end of your statesman, 
Unless between lines he may wish }ou to look for his meaning. 
Permit not tribunal sublime to evade a decision 
With a compliment that is irony on its courage. 
Unless it be duty judicial to save politicians. 
Everything must be held by right and nothing by privilege. 
If you will be so generous as to allow it. 
Britain is where she is for the good of all peoples. 
If you will belay your trumpets and drums while I say so, 
And request your drum-major to let you reflect in due silence, 
Not to flourish his wind-wand gigantic till you be through thinkings 
Yet peace is besotted with thought and to no satisfaction. 
Nevertheless, what I first see in war is more taxes. 
And dead heroes who failed to run oflf do not pay these with glory, 
While some who succeeded in running away may draw pensions. 
On the basis of things as they are in this day of peace dominant 
Except where it does not prevail, I meekly propose you 
The reciprocal guarantee of all national possessions. 
And the observance obligatory of treaties, 
Save such as some of you may find profit in breaking. 
Let the Czar warrant China intact for the good of all nations, 
While all empires warrant his warrant and his and their empires!. 
This would surpass a peace-congress and leave it superfluous. 
And would blockade in their caverns the sons of the boucans, 
Or offer their patriotism a chance at renewing 
The commercial acquisitions which used to distinguish them, 
Provided all congresses fail to agree about empire. 
What are Cabinets if not organized sons of the boucans, 
But lacking the fascination and dash of the protos? 

122 



Distinct from encroacher, there must be an easy leader. 

I am warbling now of a sphere among civilized races. 

There must be among nations an open-door leader with followers. 

This duty is natural to Britain, though France may deny it. 

Yet France will at last see no trustworthy ally but Britain. 

You have only one chance to be great: 'tis to rescue the epochs 

From the childish dirt, debt, crime and suffering that go to make glory. 

To sustain them would be to saturate the future with sadness. 

Wherefrom half a dozen redemptions could not redeem it. 

115- 

I propose incorporating the Twentieth Century 

With everything that the earth can produce in that period, 

Too numerous to catalogue, surely, but nothing omitted. 

This is a blanket company of largest dimension 

For administering all that is corporate or inchoate, 

No matter what nor where, with theatres and churches 

Annexed to relieve the strain with amusement and solace. 

I annex a condition: I must be Pope of the Total 

With fifty-one per cent, of the capital issued. 

My price is small in view of my size of idea. 

As well as the brass it contains, though this last is no greater 

Than that of some men to-day paid in annual millions. 

Feudal millionaires in Columbia; feudal barons in Europe; 

Free people and peoples unfree, each equal in genuflexion; 

Call each other hard names if you like; this is all there is in it. 

But may be the Twentieth Century will throw out my project. 

Undividended Columbians perhaps will first turn on it. 

ii6. 

Present statesmanship should anticipate that of the future. 
Whose wealth can easily pay to the present a discount. 
Since true statesmanship would employ it to double the interest, 
Not misuse it so as to make future borrow from future 

123 



Ami thus niorti;"ago the cycles to come to the day of the dooincrack. 

But however you liuance this plan, keep this side of the doonicrack, 

So to give my Company its chance on the Twentieth Century. 

Trade is free with us. and we air no presumptive protection. 

We do not transfer Mr. Canning's doctrine to Asia. 

There is room enough in Asia for every one, said Beaconsfield. 

The Philippine capture illustrates this to perfection 

And is one of the providential strokes of the era. 

Any nation may hire a coaling station in Asia, 

Or annex a port, if it can, like Japan, there or elsewhere. 

Manifest destiny, like freedom, must take out a license, 

Or become licentious and so give offence universal. 

Fresh fields and pastures new were the luck of democracy; 

They gave it a vogue; but wait till those fields be short-nibbled! 

I would rather perceive the things of to-day than to-morrow, 

Since they profit me more. I care naught for the honors of seerage, 

But would like to remark not to Britain alone, but to Europe, 

That my States' foreign politics grow fat on short commons 

For other nations ; not fat upon other conditions. 

That which can grow fat by itself will not be molestea. 

In this there is no offence to the States, for they know it ; 

And the sooner Europe quit fooling with primal conditions 

And stop minuet diplomatic on premise affected, 

The earlier each side will correctly construe independence. 

Refusal of supply works the same result everywhere. 

Whether in Parliament or in the beef and wheat markets, 

And Britons would rather not volunteer by the million 

To fight for raw food if they can annex other sources ; 

The sole people that must so volunteer if they cannot^ 

Whether annexation shall be commercial or other. 

Politician would not admit this, I make it a crusade 

In order that politicians be forced to adopt it. 

And let the results take care of themselves, my Lord Marquis! 

\ on have done some very great things ; but no man can win always. 

Kaiser William and President Cleveland illustrate my principle, 

Simultaneously striking in British Guiana and Africa. 

124 



1 1/. 

I am a very strong navy-man for two reasons, 

So long as foreign cordial intent shows in arming. 

The more numerous our ships, the less likely our friend to attack us. 

Then, if he assault, we shall be the more likely to lick him. 

Moreover, if once we get down, we shall not be let up again. 

That is perhaps the least comic remark of my comedy. 

And the .States would be circumscribed, too, with Great Britain in limbo. 

The two can do anything; neither alone can do everything. 

Not even the things best in common mterest of nations. 

The torpedo-boat game is a very deep game; we have seen it, 

Though shallov/ the waters may be that promote its successes. 

And water-m.ines; these might be very effective against us. 

But an earthquake would ruin the gain? Will you bet on the earthquake? 

All Britons see this; but the moral grandeur of England, 

Which contracts m.e the diaphragm, makes asses of some o' them. 

This moral grandeur is just what our enemies bet on; 

They pretend to none, but are very efficient with armies. 

Tyndal was no politician; a statesman was Tyndal 

Who foresaw the menace and dared to be true to conviction 

Derived from those instants of light vv'hereby one sees more clearly 

Than another, yet cannot tell why, neither why you deny it. 

May it not be too late when we come to believe in his wisdom ! 

Plenty of army and navy and money will save us 

Promptly and fearlessly used in proportion to danger. 

Without these vn/c are beaten with dignity am.id laughter. 

We carried ourselves with the highest caste, the foe tells us, 

The foe being any alert political foreigner. 

But as winner he smiles, bows us out, and opens a bottle. 

ii8. 

Some one recently patronized Britons by putting persistence 
And pluck in advance of the militant grasp of positions. 
The grasp and activity which make soldierly genius, 

125 



As the British winning quahties. Let us examine this : 

In five centuries or so, we gifted to fame as great Generals 

Edward the First, and the Third, the Black Prince, the Fifth Henry, 

Strafford in posse, Cromwell, Marlborough, Clive, Wellington, 

All conspicuous in the front rank. Within the same period 

Who else, of the equally great, has produced equal number? 

Napoleon said that Turenne is the greatest French soldier; 

His tone is imperial; such are the nine I have mentioned! 

With Lord Clive, I am astonished at our moderation 

In not patronizing those who so flippantly judge us, 

Since Turenne is no greater than any one of my Britons. 

This brief canto is not intended as brag, but correction ; 

Not to spatter with praise our great fieldmen, but still not to stint it. 

Let Our Empire enlarged give this order correlative chances ! 

119. 

If you and I could own every pound on the planet, 

With our fellow-creatures jammed in starvation and slavery, 

What a lone and imperial eminence we should occupy! 

Yet the modern methods, so dubbed, tend direct to this status. 

You may have it alone if you wish, for I could not be happy. 

Neither deem myself really w^ealthy, in such situation. 

My Twentieth Century Syndicate motives are altruist. 

By what right should I be almoner? By the same whereby you grasp every 

thing! 
There is more in mere mind than is called to accumulate fortune; 
More even than great mind is called to make up the great human; 
Francis Bacon and Daniel Webster step up to illustrate. 
There is more in a man than the man, as George Bancroft expressed it; 
But the more is latent; the other victoriously sordid. 
My main Syndicate purpose is to develop this latent. 
We need solvent concerns to earn interest for shareholding widows ; 
For, my friend with this book, if these widows must marry for living, 
You and I could take only two, if we cared to be happy. 
But let us keep our heads till I get up my Syndicate, 

126 



Which will absorb the results of the Russian peace-congress, 

And wherein every one will find chance, of course Britain the biggest. 

And big pick we shall have with the widows, all crazy to marry us 

For the double advantage of syndicate honors and dividends, 

Since no duke is so big as the man who shall make this successful. 

While his coadjutors pace proudly his level. 

It is not our duty to efface any part of Our Empire 

For the peace and safety of friends bearing menace gratuitous. 

Let them take the chip-shoulderstraps ofT and take on the chances, 

Like France, with five possible foes to watch on her limits. 

The States may remodel the world by initiative moral. 

If so, they will need moral aid, and we must be ready. 

120. 

Here is a wholly new story of patriotic Hellenic. 

There was always for me, in things Grecian, a vein of the comic; 

But this annal eclipses the fun-pride of all later eras. 

And has very strong claims to attention of seekers of office. 

King of Crete was Minos, and judge of Elysium and Tartarus. 

Present king and a judge of the future, he ought to be truthful. 

But he traded in bulls with intention of cheating Poseidon, 

And was caught in the act, and his misapplied bull driven to madness. 

While the other was slain; losing two bulls by being dishonest; 

Who conquered King Nisus by captivating his daughter. 

She unfilially clipping the purple life-tress from the parent; 

Minos, famous in cattleyard yarns as the owner of ]\Iinotaur, 

Who troubled his majesty somewhat as stepson and half breed; 

Insidious worker for all it was worth of the labyrinth, 

The earliest political machine, if not the most devioiis; 

Least known, though he should be best known, as the master of Talos, 

A brass man, supposed to have been presented by Vulcan, 

Since 'tis hard to imagine who else in that age could have made him, 

Some of his traits being submissive and others volcanic, 

Vulcan known to be both, at least in affairs matrimonial. 

What could be done with a man made of vivified armor 

127 



And proof against sword, bludgeon, catapult, arrow and burning? 
His purpose was that of patrolling this Cretan isle royal. 
He was efficient indeed; thrice a day he marched 'round it. 
A single sentry as good as an army was Talos. 
A people of pretexts the Greeks, ever prompt at dissension, 
Crete a coveted land then as now, and Minos unlovely 
And quick at provoking a quarrel as Beneks Ofeeshow, 
Once a Thousand-Nights' statesman some thousands of miles from Arabia, 
Who, as natural result, found semblables prone to oblige him. 
But Talos, this army of one man, was very efficient. 
He challenged a friend as a foe till he knew he was friendly, 
And little he cared for affirmative proof of the friendship, 
And brief was the time he permitted to prove the intention. 
All comers were treated alike as they stepped on the beach there. 
All were warm/iy received without waiting for notice of errand; 
For when he espied the approach of prospective encroachers 
He lighted a fire and heated himself to the red point 
And then went to the shore to salute the presumptive invaders, 
Whom he embraced, inattentive to story of object, 
Overcoming them equally thus in the heat of his greeting. 
How many the kings who have prayed to be spared their friends' kindness? 
What king ere was saved from all friends and all foes except Minos? 
What statesman or sentinel ever has saved one save Talos? 
Who had but one vein, stopped by nail in the top of his cranium. 
Which was drawn by J\Iedea, who bled him to death, the vile priestess; i 

Bled a brass man to death ; it required a brass priestess to do it, ; 

That the Argonauts might land for what was elsewhere or nowhere: '' 

The pirates of yachting who sailed for the fleece that was golden. 
Each seeking a fortune as payment for going a-yachting; j 

Argonauts, prototypic of all who wish something for nothing, : 

And founder not, land not, these sons of perpetual motion, 'a 

But whether discoverers or victims thereof, 'tis their secret. s 

O gods of reward, by what means shall we merit or keep it? ' 

Perish the hybrid who tells you that Talos o'erdid it, ,; 

For friend, politician nor foe ever once pestered Minos. | 

What object in semce except that of being successful? > 

128 { 



Name me the servant of state more successful than Talos, 

A sentinel simply, the bronze pyro-warden of Candia! 

No kingdom was ever so perfectly guarded as Crete was. 

What equal instance of office-beggars defeated? 

I appeal for reply to the chairmen of all federations 

From forty-nine north away southward to Tierra del Fuego ! 

One officer only; an indestructible coast-guard, 

Indestructible but for the treacherous whim of a priestess. 

Taking the place of cabinet, general and army. 

More efficient than European fleets around Crete in our decade. 

What a sarcastic reflection on modern great nations! 

121. 

Do you call it necessary evil, or evil necessity? 

I mean militarism ; one is euphemism for the other. 

Whatever Emperor may do in suppressing the cause of it. 

Or President in proclaiming civilian ideals 

In Chinese ports, British Guiana, or East or West Indies, 

Is consistent with Washington's Farewell Address the world over 

Without regard to philanthropy, glory or doctrine. 

Be he Nicholas or William; for George was a civilian and soldier, 

But soldier with purpose of fixing civilian supremacy. 

This is George's greatest justification of fortune. 

Therefore lift high the praise of civilianism, O ye peoples! 

122. 

Between silence and platitude, let us adore you for silence. 

We know the old truths, and your triteness cannot augment them; 

Nor mine ; I tell some of them over for pointing a satire. 

If the thought will not warrant the sentence, blow not with your inkhorn, 

You will aid your repute among friends by not blotting your topic. 

Be sure of a new idea for the pen or thn platform; 

Neither frenzy nor vagary, but something responsive to judgment. 

Avoid secular paeans of syndicates antagonistic 

129 



And come in with me, for mine can be only harmonious! 

Jot nothing down till framed up in the epigrammatic: 

Your cantos fall dead if in style they be dry or long-winded. 

Bright results, not the process of polishing, dazzle our optics. 

The new man and woman are doing us up for a novel. 

We are starting afresh as Adam and Eve would have started 

In an Eden of science, the Euphratian having been luckless, 

And therefore dismissed in the hope of less bitter experience. 

Help us avoid the result of the dictum of Gresham 

That plutocracy will not disappear save in bloodshed; 

"That a larger army than that General Grant commanded 

Will not save from worse fate than dissolution of Union ;" 

Gresham. Aristotle of politics dead in a clerkship. 

To divide an empire to rule it is sanctified politics. 

Toleration invites impositon; beware the ecclesiast 

Who begins by intrusion and ends by absorbing your freedom. 

The mass sits on aisle-benches while pewmen debate in the vestry. 

And superstition and capital tell you God willed it 

Till superstition tells capital God needs the hoardings ; 

The ]^.Iost High thus appearing to wreck the estate of his children. 

But with layman and priest in My Syndicate on one level 

The Lord will not be abused nor the godly be mulcted. 

123. 

A race despotic in conscience is despot in politics ; 

A race in politics free is free also in conscience. 

All divisional grasp must be limited by an average. 

All ambition of race be responsive at last to equality. 

Man or race has the right to whatever its talents can gather. 

But no race has the right to attempt to sit down on its equals. 

That is a formula simple for dealing with all of them. 

One tyranny, as one liberty, leads to another. 

Will pride in the past mixt with present apathy save you? 

Let them surrender to freedom the casuist pretences 

Wherewith they insult the blood-purchased right of dissenting! 

Charles the Ninth would be the first slain in a new St. Bartholomew. 

130 



124- 

'The age of the martyrs is past because nothing demands it; 
It is always past when the despot is tired of exacting; 
Or during the peace imposed by extermination. 
You can call it up in a night if a martyr be needed, 
And for modern purpose revive St. Barthol and Smithfield. 
Any lost soul with a pretext tongue-laden can work this. 
Private murder is still wholly free against free speech and conscience. 
Take the cases of Hanford and Cronin, both in Chicago. 
Shall ex-cronies of Cronin continue to dictate your politics? 
In history are many periods with evils and martyrs; 
Yoi] ''an resurrect the worst by repeating its evil. 
Such period simply sleeps till you waken its genius, 
That of the copperhead waiting the boy in the playfield. 
Your reformer is always sincere till he turns politician; 
Ihen he knows himself impossible as reformer. 
Who, if he stay by his character, becomes martyr. 
Let not love of your country appear in your praise of another. 
Imitation is not evolution ; w^e had a statesman 
Who affected to think so ; criticism will destroy him ! 
Politicians of soothing-syrup cannot soften conditions. 
Domestic reform resembles a jug of molasses; 
A sweet dish of brief vogue put aside for the beef of the Tories 
■Or some force-giving dish which revives our respect for our country. 
England thrives or suffers by foreign affairs, not domestic, 
And succeeds by the men who can rule there, or fails in their absence. 
Truth advances, despite gifted good men who see not its bearings ; 
That is why one kingdom 'came three, and the three became empire. 
Tell this to the gentry of inkhom who next seek your suffrage. 
I regret hostile propositions, which nature provides not. 
But her children, who correlate ever\^thing v/ith the guinea. 
I could reconcile some of them, but leave you to do it. 
Because process of learning surpasses acceptance of dogma. 
•<jO into the tower of thought and forget cumulation ! 

131 



125. 

Yet when yon come out a sarcasm may bite your conclusion. 
Too much talent may mean a degenerate, just Hke too Httle, 
In the judgment of the low mighty average of egoism : 
In the sacred even medium where grasp is the standard. 
Add this in the next time you cast up accounts with misfortune. 
Conform where you cannot refonn ; it will do you less injury 
Tlian fighting against the fleet : though the logic of altruism 
Beats that of hoard, and floats more public good in the oflrtng. 
Too many rich admirals shoot against time to the contrary, 
Rut you cannot fire hard enough to make your impression. 

126. 

I know you, France ! 1 have lived with you, and I love you, 

And I have been loved in your land by a standard ideal. 

Tlie Prince loves you, too ; happy nowhere as happy in Paris. 

Why do you always pounce for a weakness in Britain 

And recoil like a cannon whose powder and ball have been wasted? 

We are more than we were ; you are not quite so much in proportion. 

^\'e know you can fight ; we have known it for dozens of decades. 

You lost Canada : aac lost the empire adjacent to so'thard. 

In revenge the balance is vastly yours ; be not cormorant. 

We do not deny our regret at the loss of that empire. 

\\'hile as France you are much, you cannot be France and Great Britain p 

If you try it agrain you will find it a wasting ambition. 

Why do your great men invent bases false for our greatness, 

Vos eclateurs de vaiseau, de la plume, et du sabre. 

As though to amuse the French people with quack raisons d'etre, 

Only your prophets unheeded bespeaking the true one ? 

This is all", nature gave us the place and our art has improved it. 

Although, I am sorry to say, not improved it as yours would. 

Do you wish any grander tribute than that to your grandeur? 

The world had been ours could we add to our own the French genius. 

Possible foes geographic limit vour forces ; 

132 



Yet you never miss a childish chance to be restless 
When our gifts of dominion offer new chances to nations. 
La dignite et la niaiserie: comment vont elles ensemble? 
We are the surest if not the swiftest in Europe, 
And the happier and safer are we in not needing the swiftness. 
I am giving you now the symposian taffy on Britain. 
We, too, could be great, should we choose it, in mobilization. 
But mobilization alone is not all we exist for. 
We prefer a national life on m.ore normal conditions. 
Yet your system is best where all live for mobilization. 
Some others would live as we do if the waters were willing, 
--^'^ the waters are more expensive for us than for any. 
We shall not try to injure you, and we wish no one else may. 
Had it not been for you, we should not to-day be in Egypt. 
Have you ever thought of chastising yourself for assisting there? 
We hold the balance of power but would rather not show it. 
This is the yarn the fool's paradise Englishman spins you. 
The mobilizes might some day object to that balance; 
Thereat we should mobilize quickly, if not cut to pieces. 
You might be overrun when no nation could touch us. 
Geographic advantage alone gives us how many millions ? 
To overrun Britain the armies must march on the ocean ; 
We might from the first persuade them not to set foot there ; 
That is, when not led by a Ministry of Symposium. 
Could you recover better without us than with us ? 
If you spoil for a fight, is it wise to select us as object? 
This is a question of strategy rather than tactics. 
A strategic error substitutes tactics for strategy. 
But my Briton is navy-crazed, expecting his navy 
To be also an army, till venture shall settle the question ; 
So perhaps it is he who substitutes tactics for strategy. 
Ainsique le Fran<;ais leger ait plus du poids que notre Anglais ! 

122- 

Non credetela prova d'amicizia fra le nazioni 
-Massacrar gli assassini e giustificar il delitto 

133 



Perche non capace la Icgge fu di punirgli, 
Quantunque nemici di tutti. stranieri vilissimi, 
Detestati e non sostenuti dai compatrioti, 
Cosi fingendo virtu da necessita infame. 
Che siate bene in caso di niantener i trattati, 
Yoi di lodi die i vostri non istancan ripettersi. 
E die bene stii tu nella monarchia, Italia ! 
Tutt' e bottica. se vuolete ; ma ce n' e una migliore. 
Tutt' e macchina. secondo i transatlantici ; 
Macchina monarchica, macchina democratica, eccetera. 
Xon val neppur la pena d' imprimere la lista ; 
E quella dei socialisti cerca dispiazzar le altre. 
Piantato '1 sistema, macchina sarebbe quell' anche. 
Pill ciecchi, piu Icnti son finora i democratici, 
Pill di tutt' altri fissati nell' orgoglio di sistema, 
Scommetendo sempre della superiorita dei padri. 
Parlo ancora di macchina, sai, mia cara Italia ! 
Evviva la macchina politica ! Ridiamo! Non siam' ingannati ! 
II sufFragio di tutti quegli che stanno a due piedi, 
Andi' i soldati veterani che stanno a uno, 
Son veterano pur io, ma ne sto a due, 
Non esaurisce la sete del sangue politico. 
\'uoi esempj ? Non voglio irritar i colpevoli. 
r^Ieno di quel limitato sembra saper i propositi, 
E pare facilitar i frequenti abusi 
Scnza fare sparire un solo mal economico. 
Chilometri quadrati. numerosi e produttivi 
Non sortono d' alcuno sistema politico, 
!Ma di la sortono ricconi e monopolj. 
Li adosso si costruisce cio che si vuole, 
Tutto essendo giusto e consistente con tutto. 
Sistema glorioso dove 1' inconsistent' e impossible ! 
Andiamo al fondo del male, oppure tacciamo ! 
Ed io che lo dico ho vissuto in molte repubbliche, 
E prendo le cose del mondo come le trovo, 
E non tali quali tormentan i vast' intelletti, 

134 



Vivendo da teorie per farle quadrarsi con tutto. 
Tutto sta nella proporzione di terra e popolo, 
E terra non s'aumenta da teorie politiche 
Che cercan annihilire la brava monarchia. 
Ecco '1 recitative del vecchio osservatore ! 

128. 

Ar^ment is better than dogma because more convincing 
To intelligent minds ; dogma being the pap of the satrap. 
Interrogation I love, but we tire of the quandary ; 
-So that where to conclude is as much of a razzle as ever, 
Not that conviction is weak, but the wish to enforce it. 
I honor ex-Senator Edmunds, but cannot go with him 
Into constitutionism as an area of tether. 
Power to limit is power to enlarge ; not finding, you make it. 
Manifest Destiny and My Syndicate both go together, 
Constitutionism adapting itself to the sequence. 

129. 

Fill a new pantheon with gods who cannot look backward ! 

The more they can see and step frontward the more we adore them. 

What if the future shall smash them ? I hope it will do so 

W'hen others shall step front of them ; 'twould be destiny justified. 

You can be neither truthful nor free while you kneel to a fetich. 

Do you kneel out of reverence or cowardice, knowing the object? 

Not always right because once ; evolve, but uproot not. 

Be not satisfied merely to see it yourself, but make others. 

Cram not with fat of the past, but get apt in ways easier. 

Hidden meaning means simply deficiency of expression. 

That which cannot be clearly set forth is unworthy of inkspread. 

Occultism is something between a fog and a vanity. 

Let new chaunticleer set new epigrams to new music. 

Let a giant of letters tear out of letters their errors, 

135 



Tlif false sanctities misplaced in all tongues to mislead us. 
1 would rather be he than Prometheus or Watt or Columbus. 

130. 

The best soldier is he who comes last to the tield. not the bravest 

^^'ho died overmatched with the foe overrunning- his country. 

I once was a peace at any price man on conviction, 

But the practice of smiting both cheeks grew so painfully common. 

And the coveter's rage so augmentative and persistent. 

That I changed my conviction completely, believing that nation 

Which should obey the mandate would cease to be nation. 

By the infidel absorbed as a futile experiment. 

With salvation shamed and its prophet ignored as vain dreamer. 

\\lio will justify the impending decree of the Anarch? 

The moiling world cannot pay for gratuitous menace. 

Xor for irony of liars in the name of their country. 

The pressure of taxes on peoples w-ho cannot afford it 

Will react till revolt universal shall substitute chaos. 

Ever}- nation on earth knows that Britain is last of the peace-breakers. 

Disarm genuinely and we shall dismantle the Navy. 

Great is a fleet, but greater the nation not needing it. 

Militarism prodded even the States into arming. 

Their moral example being lost in the greed of the envious 

Till they were at length compelled to take arms to assert it. 

Does France maintain a republic to propagate czarism? 

Xo : France will see further ahead and step out of the folly. 

131- 

Consider a people a public and not as a populace, 
Reciprocally its own government and all others. 
Make the populace a public in morals and honor. 
Let them discover a mind as distinct from a mania. 
The uneducatevi will in the acts of a nation 

Is much worse than in those of a man, because they reach further. 

136 



Do not resent a new light as the flash of an insult. 

Neither dodge a new truth as a suddenly pointed revolver. 

If in private life you admit that your chief is true blue fellow. 

Pass not ancestral reflections nor curse him in public. 

Mistake not indifference nor dullness for magnanimity, 

Xor regard the ex-tough who is rich as a saint or a gentleman. 

'Tis easy to seem what you choose after bagging the boodle. 

Love your country as much as you choose without hating another. 

Nine radiant sons of the nine parts of speech as objectors 

Universal, do less harm than one war-whooping patriot, 

The orator and the oracle of the tavemacle, 

Or a gent of the toga whose bravery strangles conviction. 

De- not call on your God as a cheap means of shirking your duly, 

Neither tr>' to put elsewhere your own obligations by praying. 

You cannot take sanctuary from unperformed office. 

The God who provided a world that provides us a living 

Works by general design and not by a providence special. 

Do your part, which is not to pray God that another may do it. 

To commend to his care that which you were commanded to care for 

Is foolish and impious and ineffective divinely. 

That is why so many millions of prayers go unanswered. 

132. 

Be slow to let go of individual initiative. 

Individual competition brings out the best faculties. 

And My Syndicate shall be operate on this principle ; 

Dividends, not wages ; and you must hustle to earn them. 

This prevents the vast wealth of the few on starved toil of the many. 

No dividend means no payment to any shareholder. 

It is your duty to work, and to win is your policy, 

And, unit born, to do both on your unit identity. 

In no sense do you need a board of directors to limit you. 

Representing stored millions of guineas against your wage-pent! ies. 

If parental responsibility is to be justified, 

Your right to live free from the say of a board of directors 

137 



Is as good as it was to be born without their approval. 

Free field ; equal dividends ; no big fortunes ; no wages ; 

This puts luxury and necessity on one level 

And refuses to see in sordidness virtue or wisdom. 

Am I shouting above your plateau ? Well, to climb is good exercise. 

The industrial trustee is the vampire of modern subsistence. 

I believe that no prior great head has affixed him that stigma; 

But, being in, he cares nothing for stigma ; being ex is what troubles him. 

Go not to war ; you would better extirpate your vampires, 

Thus earning fresh glory and setting a moral example. 

As a President tried to do in the Saccharine Islands. 

You acquire no more right to a property simply by coveting 

Than the ventrical deist has in the dinner too dear for him. 

I am merely ahead of my time ; you will soon overtake me. 

]My great age w^as projected ahead, not locked in symposium, 

Agapemone of the wits who have fuddled three decades. 

Things good in themselves are good regardless of origin. 

Do you know any truth that is true because somebody said it, 

Or one damned in itself by the character of the finder? 

The decalogue is not hurt because Moses was an assassin. 

All men are the sons of some cultus, the heirs of some glory ; 

Not all are equal, and you over some are lord warden; 

But if providence gave you a country and fate a vast empire, 

Proscribe not your miates nor be priests of a braggart apostolate, 

Of spolia opima won from one man by a dozen. 

Or by million buffonic Marcelli crushing a thousand. 

Not born to the manor, this priesthood, it frequently happens. 

But of sinuous aliens seeking advantages tortuous. 

Be not so preoccupied as to let them deceive you ! 

133- 

One way to be statesman is to take up some small issue, 
In itself worth nothing, good for notoriety only, 
And crowd it on some weaker party or nation, depending 
On vociferousness of those who seek to sell printsheets 

138 



To give you great fame ; or you may be soldier and do this, 
Field-Marshal if you can find a field, or siege-layer, 
And by one giant bluff win a battle from starving small numbers. 
Years pass ; you have opened wine, drawn large pay, and paraded. 
Till at length History gathers you in, self-surprised at her conduct. 
Meanwhile votes are cast, taxes paid, and electors keep thinking. 

134. 

Patriotism ought to be always presumed, not suspected, 
Until the superfluous shouter provoketh suspicion, 
"ifiv'ade not by indirect ways ; this intensifies rancor. 
Tell not oni what terms you permit to your neighbors their freedom ; 
One grows weary of listening to principle from a puritan 
Who resents that to which he affects to expect your submission. 
Indirection suggests league defensive, not weak because tacit ; 
The silence of self-knowni power that hopes to be spared a loud challenge. 
Common feeling is sometimes so strong that noi treaty is needed ; 
And sometimes you think this is true and get left v^^hen the test comes. 
Respect in your neighbor the rights which you call for so loudly. 
Power is prone to dodge moral restraints and to justify errors. 
The logic of inter-continental antagonism 
Would justify the abolition of commerce. 
The snub of the sea, the rejection of union oceanic, 
The denial of natural league of the lands with the waters. 
The duty of equals one to another is serious. 
Your gains are the sort that are built on the loss of your masses, 
And they surely will ruin your game when they see how you play it ; 
You are winning large fortunes while they are collecting large wisdom. 
All government is but machine, and you love your machinery. 
Your dear fathers, and curs, each taught us that each is superior. 
The faction that breaks a machine becomes straightway machinist 
And, as such, is no better than that which it superseded. 
I love mine, and the Spaniard loves his, and the Turk, and the Russian; 
Mine would not do for them ; any of theirs were too much for this poet. 
By abusing mine do you cause yourn to run any smoothlier? 

139 



Darn diplomacy ! Come out and cheer the machine in the open. 

If aliens vote in their interest to capture a country, 

To make it subservient to purposes nothing but foreign, 

Say not I set race against race if I there call attention. 

At what pace shall a race take the place of the race it denounces 

As despot, by putting theocracy atop of democracy? 

My Syndicate and an Entente would absorb their activities, 

If not their identity also', by making them useful. 

Transformed agitators earning syndicate dividends ! Quid nunc, Domine ? 

I pray you permit not coercion by public opinion 

So called, which is really the massing of ignorance on wisdom. 

The mobbing by impulse of him whom slow study enlightens. 

Of him who thinks and is true to conviction and courage, 

And to vociferation contributes nothing whatever ; 

The dragooning of him who dares to be individual 

And thus alone becomes fitted to lead or tO' follow. 

This is nature's own law from the first form to the last, primacy. 

It is aristocratic only as best is aristo. 

In the eternal fitness of things the few are the wiser. 

And will be forever, in spite of majority instincts. 

Which are individual, and fully shared by minority 

Holding also the enormous advantage of study. 

Light quillists extol the paradise of the restless ; 

There the thinker is not permitted to speak, and the speaker 

Is expected not to be thinker ; that is the difference. 

Plautus is heavy for him who would rather not read him. 

If enlightenment be but the dose which Lucretius would sugar. 

Whence comes the curative draught ? Must it always be Marah ? 

If the name had not lapsed into irony, I were reformer ; 

But, I pray you, the handshake of love even though I seem Tory. 

135- 

The great man, being great in himself, would fit any epoch, 
That is, if your jealousy would let him fit anything 
Prior to the point where by force he shall smash it to atoms. 

140 



Bang up would Napoleon be now could he bang modern cannon. 
Not afraid of five terms is Porfirio Diaz, nor his people, 
The Augustus of Mexico, equally loved and respected. 
And so with twelve more, if good scholar can count us so many. 
The pioneer stage develops some strong human virtues 
Not found in the state succeeding the earlier activities. 
Cromwell was not pioneer ; he was merely transformer. 
Oliver smashed an old system and "settled" one, later demolished, 
On God as he deemed him a substitute for a Stuart. 
This brought a fresh Stuart as substitute for a deity, 
And a sarcasm celestial on Oliver came in the substitute. 
But alas that his virtues remain in his own generation., 
' For the pioneer's son is another sort of a fellow ! 
On the basis of civilization laid by his father 
He builds an industrial system, and riches and poverty, 
Education, hypocrisy, lockouts and dynamite follow. 
Thus the old pioneer is much more the respectable fellow. 

136. 

You decrease individual importance by raising the average, 
But for the multitude which we love it is better ; 
For the multitude for which you and I pulverize the person. 
And now, my elector, look well to thy leader of labor ! 
He can frighten the rate of discount into a tremolo 
By simply knowing his business ; but so can another 
Prevent him by knowing a little more of his business. 
But the pressing needs of mankind are not met by debating ; 
Rather by equity and adjustment according to science ; 
By the science which is the larger knowledge of circumstance. 
Use sense only with him whom experience brings to conclusions. 
In patriotism, study, in all of the higher activities, 
I would spare all opinions while openly airing my notions. 
To give chances for smashing mistakes is a high public service. 
Thus if college-bred men are prejudged in favor of classmates 
As against the athletes of mind and of muscle outside them, 

141 



Then I say education has narrowed, not widened their natures, 
Teaching a social egoism and a patriotism shouty. 
And to that extent is misnamed from the depths ; are you with me? 
Then let us look on mistakes from the perch of the prophet ! 

137- 

It is not easy to govern imagination 

For him to whom it comes as an easy quack capital. 

But nature is weak and I know not his point of surrender, 

And while I am willing to trust it is unfair to tempt him. 

Speech is silvern ; silence is golden. I know of a mountain 

Rich in the bases of both : if I tell where to find it 

He will dig out the part oratoric to lie of the silent, 

So much he loveth his voice more than that of more value, 

And circulate thus the tokens of tongue for deception. 

In his vanity leaving the tokens of thought in concealment. 

And so I will keep to myself the address of my mountain, 

Por the world is belated and silver-plated from speech-mines. 

138. 

Gold has doubled in value, you say ; why not let it quadruple ? 
Or silver, if silver can find the same chances in commerce? 
The measure of value itself is at last a comimodity, 
Whether you make the measure of metal or credit. 
And the prices of all things must fluctuate, gold not excepted. 
Auction-value is possible even to national credit ; 
And some such, if so bought, would net a good loss for the buyer, 
No matter how low he might bid, or underrate assets. 
The faith of all men in themselves is worth more than all metals ; 
But this worth is destroyed where only the few remain faithful. 
Let democracy therefore stay firm, not for metal, but justice. 
May it not be again led away by the prophets of crazes ! 
Anything may be built by ignoring of truths elemental ; 
We called such things castles in Spain, till the States blew their roofs off. 

142 



Oold is not guilty for finding the gilt situation ; 

Silver is seeking it now with phenomenal eagerness. 

Suppose gold divided and silver quadrupled in value, 

Would ye refuse to push gold to the standard of silver 

If ye could, O ye statesmien of speeches as long as a session ? 

Do you seek to create of the public a victim of heresy 

On which to unload, and then let gold shoulder all burdens, 

Even those which your project would pile on its present cumulus? 

I speak to the speakers now specious in white metal specie, 

As though they were talking for coal-dust as commerce-disturber. 

Gold found its chances and silver got left ; then why grumble ? 

'Tis but a natural instance of growl, dear elector. 

Many chances unforseen daily modify prices. 

Do not silverites strain every nerve to make silver more precious, 

While the gold fellows equally strive to appreciate their metal ? 

Why should other metals be taxed to make silver the dearer? 

Some one metal must measure all others ; why not let gold do it ? 

Why seek to unsettle all values for mere change of measure? 

Everything that depreciates continuously goes into bankruptcy; 

Whatsoever appreciates continuously makes people richer 

So far as such things are concerned, be the same good or evil ; 

And when industry prospers all things whatever appreciate 

According to market demand ; and especially silver. 

Senators take their turns going to Heaven, but this truth stays in Washington. 

After all, these are nothing but golden and silvern conundrums. 

Argent-Plutus and Aurum-Plutus seem locked in a prize-ring 

In front of My Syndicate windows, while I referee them. 

139. 

More our epigrams are ironic summaries of failure 

Than guidieboards at fortunate forks in the road to successes ; 

That is, in the main : when by chance they record something better, 

They spring forth of some happy fellow whose luck was not general, 

Whom imagination inspired to emit something hopeful, 

To arrest and preserve after dinner a flash optimistic. 

143 



The more you read up, the more gravely you doubt your own genius. 
Spontaneity is overlaid by your knowledge. 

If unlearned, you hit on fresh thoughts which are fresher in Plato. 
So that well-read or ill, it is mighty hard to be gifted. 

140. 

Does man earn salvation, or is it decreed by vox populi ? 
Vox decrees so much nowadays that the limit is doubtful. 
Did not even Augustus, when dying, doubt his life's value ? 
Can you go to Heaven by act of Danubian Sobranje, 
Or of bodies colossal enactive by Thames or Potomac? 
Overspread popular sovereignty sometimes suggests it, 
Suggests that you can, and that merit is measured by shouting. 
'Bout-face from your man at the point where you follow him dumb-struck I 
Half-solved problems shine for results like the pirate's decoy-light. 
Why quintuple the wisdom of those who wallow in politics, 
A science which teaches expediency only, not principle? 
Does the simple fact of election make him a Solomon ? 
Does defeat make a muleteer of the candidate beaten? 
If elected, did you think office would make him a Solon? 
Why do exes find least of respect among suffragists-general ? 
If God were sardonic his favorite game would be suffrage, 
I deem from the accidents which recur for its prestige. 
Blind political adoration discredits a freeman. 
Why seek ye to serve many men, ye who will not serve one man ? 
Political fictions are ludicrous now ; throw them over. 
Your offer to serve is the subterfuge of the ruler, 
And wrong to its depths is the system that renders this possible. 
If constituents were as wise as the Member from Stumpville, 
His stump speeches would cease to be useful in fuddling the people. 
Never descend to make hirelings of those who make statutes. 
At this point I am looking for sense as distinct from sensation. 
My faith in the people is large, but is larger in Lexow 
Since the popular knowledge of what his committees discovered. 
If a poor man be really required, his electors can pay him, 

144 



Thus doubling the credit due to constituents and member. 

This means the state shall not pay for the bluffing self-seekers 

Who lack both the mind and equipment due to the duty. 

A hardship ? Perhaps ; but the lesser choice of two evils. 

If I know not the devil in this, I can never know anything. 

Let us go it by morals and honor, not by the average, 

Dull substitute of the lazy for grasp and analysis. 

The average is the curse of political casuistry, 

And conscience-forcing on others is worse than the conquest 

So reprehended as crime by President McKinley. 

The honor of serving the crown is as great as to wear it ; 

A different order of merit, but morally equal. 

The crown : in heaven and on earth the most beautiful symbol 

When neither misused nor abused, which is frightfully frequent. 

141. 

With your mind once thoro'ly free you will judge of the genii 
Less by degree than by order of beauty and merit. 
Load not Sophocles and Shakespeare with contrast and contact, 
Lest your reader in mere self-defence vow that neither had genius. 
Each excels the other in cumulation differential, 
Or in something like that, till the commentators go crazy ; 
And each was great, greater or lesser, just as you deem him, 
With the critic thrown out as the bully of private judgment. 
Both were mufifs, if your admiration be not spontaneous. 
Let us free our high minds from mere vassalage to conviction ! 
No man has been great enough yet for a critic-made fetich, 
To be sustained through all ages by psean ascriptions 
Of the fellows who simply discover new terms of laudation. 
I say no man was ever thus great, and I make no exception. 
This all comes from a mind mathematic, you see, not poetic. 
Would to the gods Prometheus had left an opinion on .^schylus 
Who bound him, or on Shelley, who undid the work of the Grecian ! 
Yet concerning them both he has always seemed scornfully silent : 
Not a word whether Shelley or ^schylus left him the happier, 

145 



Nor of gratitude nor of preference for Hellen or Briton. 
Yet it may be he sulks in dumb rage that the punitive eagle 
No longer provokes him to shout as the Franklin primaeval. 
And Homer deigns nothing of Chapman, Pope, Derby or Bryant. 
The gods gave grand chances to poets, not slow to improve them. 
Nor to handle those gods in defiance of schemes of punition. 
I wonder what Shakespeare would say of the theorem binomial. 
Was Phidias or Angelo greater ? Yet stay not to tell me ; 
I might not assimilate your dictum, yet would not reject it. 
David is equal to Zeus, and their fames cannot crumble. 

142. _ 

Establish your nation in God's name, with plenty of Bible; 

Make statesmen of theocrats who quote freely its maxims ; 

They can be trusted to turn into democrats, finally, 

And then to regret that democracy slowly slips from them. 

Then on this democracy a new race theocratic 

•Will descend in augmenting hordes to preach human unity 

With their race as the unit point and force ; wherefrom trouble 

Will come ; thence more freedom and higher, of the species 

That has burned error to ashes instead of corraling it. 

Thus democracy will sufifer and win from theocracy. 

Through the aid of the tribe of Poohpooh, in shining and lasting example. 

143- 

Nothing fallacious in despotism ; it means that the despot 
Is fitted to rule, and the governed are fit to be governed 
In church, state or social collection, regardless of continent. 
Altruism and evolution studied as sciences 
Will extirpate this evil, will take it out of the races 
After long labor of love, whereof no one grows weary 
When once he has made up his mind to begin in that labor. 
However, meanwhile I expect a few despots will flourish. 
The race is not swift to take the first pace altruistic. 

146 



144- 

This book is not written in condemnation of systems, 

Of any system, political, social or sponive, 

But to ask how they square themselves off with professions and ethics, 

And partly to educate people on education. 

Though my pretensions therein are mainly suggestive. 

Yet education itself begins by suggestion. 

Balzac wrote of the potent education of chastisement 

For those predestined to greatness ; and yet the great Frenchman 

Had been great for some time ere acquainting the world with his foresight. 

Which weakens it somewhat as foresight is one of his destiny. 

TJewas the Shakespeare of prose, as some Englishman put it 

Jn an access of condescension and truth which astonish. 

Though Balzac had ten times the chances of Shakespeare at knowledge, 

And was vastly more sparing in use of the genius poetic. 

Since irony takes prior rank in his Comedy Human; 

Whose fun finds in human nature its justification. 

The greatest work of a man of his years in all letters. 

If I should ever concern myself with curricula, 

Chastisement should hold the first place in the new education. 

I am the foe of the ancient instruction of failure. 

Your task is to show it is other, O Arnold and Eliot ; 

Not to lecture all 'round and over the theme, but to show it. 

I am the friend of the ninety-and-nine who succeed not 

By reason of chances in mono and not in the poly. 

From this p>oint all the courses in schools cannot graduate this poet. 

These schools owe mankind an apolog)^, if they can frame one. 

Head-master of Harvard, here is a chance to beat Franklin, 

Born not five miles from your door, and not one of your graduates. 

Who had the gift of surpassing some fellows who were such. 

Do for education what he did for lightning, I pray you ! 

145- 

A mistake of old men, and I write it with hand not quite steady, 
Is their weighty reflections on things that young men deem historic ; 

147 



Or that is the way the young men in new countries explain it. 

If activity leave them at fifty and they Hve to a hundred 

They reason with beauty and force of the things that are bygone, 

While the young fellows fight the new problems and carry the burdens. 

And win the experiences age alone can make use of. 

Do you grasp the perplexity now whose sequence disturbs us? 

Experience too old to be active, youth hopeful and daring, 

Of the errors of energy full and the comfort of courage. 

Let us compromise so that no one shall live after forty ; 

Or establish an age for retiracy on compulsion 

Whereat the wise stand aside and watch ignorance flounder. 

Let each system work itself out to success or to failure ; 

But when any has failed, pray do not insist it succeeded. 

Patriotic self-complacency need not be idiocy. 

If gods disappeared and idols were smashed, so of systems. 

Unhappy the man who lifteth the fool as by windlass ; 

Yet many grow old and fall dead at the crank of that duty, 

Unsung for their pains ; but a just God rewards them hereafter. 

I sing not as psalmist, nor crank ; but as tuneful observer, 

As the miscellaneous musician of discords concordant. 

Not as professor of propaganda or dogma ; 

And my melodies have been supped from the spheres and from elsewhere. 

146. 

This may seem a superfluous proposition of business, 
Yet have I seen some lives wrecked through its lack of observance. 
In order to get any money out of a business 
There must be some in it ; think well about that before choosing, 
If you can find time to be bred and were not born a funwaif, 
Since nothing yields less of a profit than misapplied labor. 
And the longer you travail the greater the misapplication. 
You do not lack talent because your pursuit has no value ; 
You do lack reward because it comes not from such calling. 
All the talents are not for one man, nor is one man for all things, 
And the skill of a world may not rescue the victim of no skill. 

148 



Mere labor alone, though titanic, creates not a fortune ; 

•Cast your eye for the possible guineas before you begin it. 

The 'longshoreman and Shakespeare could not exchange situations, 

Yet of both not the more indifferent was the poet 

Because he could not stow cargo as well as write Hamlet. 

Energy bursts into manifestations peculiar. 

The Icarus of science might drop on a pinion dissolving. 

While a pigeon might fly with his secret to alchemist Huxley. 

Do not abuse the successful ; some things in his merit 

Or chances have justified all he has gathered, and envy 

Might eat up the active force you require to surpass him. 

Bui: be not a god ere your time ; it will make you unhappy 

And misunderstood ; pretend that you have no pretensions 

To high life, and so popularize yourself with compatriots. 

And enchant those who deemed you were idle because you were lofty. 

Let the dull inflict pain from the dullness you cannot illumine ; 

God made you both ; some day you may learn why he did it. 

Man cannot be wholly wise till he loses his sympathy ; 

So long as he keeps it in stock he will waste it on some one 

Who was not clever enough to get above need of it. 

147. 

A top-coat in the noon of a summer sun is superfluous ; 
So is any gift higher than just enough for your purpose. , 

Pericles himself was perhaps not the perfect Athenian 
At driving a cab ; yet at highest was higher than cabby. 
You see, the higher endowirients govern the lower, 
Even to the point of unfitting for low occupations. 
You may do yourself some good if you keep this fact by you. 
Is that why the ungifted make so successful an average? 
No more and no less are their gifts than just those which are wanted. 
Doubt me not, lest you weaken my faith in your fitness for judging. 
Adaptability and nothing too much for the object 
Is the rule of both Sandy of capital and thinker. 
'One thinks, and the other imagines he thinks till the moment 

149 



Of interest arrives, when he lapses, and hoards, and grows greedy. 
But his thought enriched him far as he went ; give him credit. 

14S. 

I have traveled till strangeness and distance grew near and familiar. 

Half-frozen in high north, and have sweltered in tropic republics, 

And have studied, debated and paid years and gold for my knowledge,. 

And I pray you, my Britons, be slower than ever at changes! 

No single assembly : reflect on the French revolution, 

Or our one extra-constitutional high court of justice. 

A concentric cyclone in colossal trombone is not greatness, 

Unless as it vibrates conception out of existence. 

Some systems are run for political fun more than business, 

But that is their business, and to it I see no objection, 

Except that it does not facilitate economics 

As eliminator of politics with the governed, 

And in which those taxed for the fun perhaps take the most interest. 

But blessed are they who can pay for political circus ! 

I would join them whenever I might in the novel amusement. 

149. 

Fielding was funny, but nothing to Senator Lexow. 
If capacity to stay laughter grew not in ratio 
To provocation thereto, his committees would kill us ; 
The demons would beat the deities in hilarity. 
Let us see how it seems to be serious on books, dailies, posters. 
The invention of print has excited a lust of dominion 
In sacred and secular issues and themes and in science, 
In all things, whether abstract or concrete, that passes the passion 
For power of mediaeval pontifex, prophet or preacher, 
Filling the ink-bottle up with a Julian ambition. 
The evil is not unmixt, but the good could have waited 
And the sacrificed souls of the ink-shrine been better immortals, 

150 



Csesarean victims of stabs at the pillar of failure. 

Let not the puritan editor squirm 'round this topic ! 

He who can lift confiscation into beatitude 

Because force majeure got on top of force mineure only, 

Can show that the world was created a joke for the typos, 

A sarcastic pleasantry for cabinets and commissioners, 

That all life was born merely for print, and can justify anything. 

This Pen-Mephistopheles of the system of Moses. 

150. 

Sign no sliding scale of imperial spoliation, 
OB. itain, cut up not quite yet into rashers of bacon, 

Though if magazine-pens were knives you would long since have been such. 
Forego the blind clutch at new straws in the name of advancement. 
Elect not the coffee-house talker as framer of statutes. 
If in your prayers you tell God there is nothing good in you, 
Why should your country be right with your neighbors no better? 
Manifest destiny should educate itself for advancement 
By suasion rather than force, lest some new combination, 
Unexpected, might oppose to it other manifest destiny. 
Penury contributes nothing to mental advantage, 
Howso freely it may fill up a cistern of sympathy. 
*Tis a good school to escape from at end of first primer, 
And augments the law-maker's gifts with mistaken compassion 
For those who mistake mere free speech for industrial freedom. 
The great Nineteenth Century expires with a million stock companies 
Paying dividends on labor, but to labor no dividend. 
The syndicator says I am wrong here ; that labor 
Draws the first dividend : this is not true ; for he pays it 
With dividend labor-created, without which no divvy 
Was possible, and of which he put not a stroke in. 
He paid dividend to labor to spare himself labor, 
Clear thought here ; no fooling ; market rate ; mark it ; no altruism. 
My Twentieth Century Syndicate will transform this. 
But your corner talker cannot draft projects in aid of it. 

ISI 



God grant me income if I am to stand for a borough, 

Yet I do not wish to be paid by the state for my service, 

Nor to use labor's income as member to vote for monopoly. 

Business on a large scale in few hands does not give me the razzle ; 

Small shops with the dividends spread through the people are better. 

Modern methods object ? Then let them be promptly made ancient ! 

Existent wrong is not right because interests are vested. 

But I lost all my love of statesmanship in the lobby 

And in committee, of which an exhibit of the corruption 

Would raise such a millionaire howl that I stop ere beginning it, 

For I would do nothing to aid a new French revolution. 

At the same time, keep the crank silent ; suppress the idealogue. 

Only trained man of affairs should stand as the secular Moses 

Till the people shall be drummed up to commandments non-secular; 

But such secular Moses should be decalogical also, 

And till he be found Nineteenth Century dividends will be payable 

In century twentieth ot fortieth ; you may bank on this circumstance. 

But let not your Plutus purchase his seat in the forum ; 

Evil should be stopped short of purpose to buy its immunity. 

His money is doing him good ; it will not do you any. 

An investment must pay the investor, not the constituent. 

Men do not get wealthy and stay so by working for others. 

Though Cardinal Hfred says the fact that a man has won fortune 

Of itself makes him eligible for any top place in the government. 

This makes me feel like painting Hfred redder than ever. 

My flamboyant priest of the golden calf of Manhattan^ 

Not only as a worshipper, but proprietor also ; 

Which makes him uniquely attractive beyond other prelates. 

151. 

Do not worship your hero too much ; put your mind on his limits, 
Be he Cincinnatus, Confucius, or Chief of the Csesars. 
The greatest man simply shows somebody how to go further. 
But within the right lines ; not to go for the mere sake of mioving. 
Be shy of advisers, term-tossers and choppers of maxims. 

152 



Look for him who will sacrifice something to set up his counsel, 

Not accumulate money by telling you how you can't do it, 

Who can cure all the ills of the race if it pay for his nostrums. 

We are living still with the doctrine of total depravity. 

If not in the fact ; and no prophet is wholly triumphant, 

Not even the Altruist nailed to a tree for his fellows, 

Though temples ironic resound with his faith ini twelve nations. 

152. 

Love thyself ; let thy neighbor slide, and so be a patriot, 

As thou wouldst let slide the burning barn of next farmer. 

Be ccvetDUs in despite of Moses the Premier 

Of the terribly godly tribes of conceit and exclusion. 

From which we moderns inherit a tribe of embarrassments , 

Too crass to forecast a universe on one planet, 

Incognizant of the wealth in the welfare of all men. 

Of doctrinaires still the chiefs while still men. of percentage, 

Full of preach that shows how, without energy to achieve it. 

Overflowing with maxims of faith which the others must practise ; 

So bound up that the more they agree the more they make money. 

Annex all patriots if you cannot annex all countries ; 

Joined to your own these alone would make all empires colonies 

By surcharging the air with ozone of the national ambition 

Full of anthropological essence derived from all races. 

Avast not oration ; forestall by attributing motive. 

Love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself was good law for one people, 

But it was not expected to w^ork in the struggle of fifty. 

Moral law, like all other, is flexible tO' advantage; 

Moses did not teach this ; but allow for the era he lived in. 

Or he might have invented a flag and made murder a virtue 

Of all who preferred a flag of another invention. 

Your flag is as good as mine, though I like mine the better ; 

But if you falsely praise yours to depreciate my bunting, 

You are a low little chap of contemptible nation, 

No matter what be its bulk nor its progress fictitious, 

153 



Nor where you may sprout in the rankness of mental disorder. 

Why do you lift up such men to the seat of the scornful? 

Wherein are they better than those who inherit the office? 

I ask not are they just as good, but to see the improvement. 

Permanent college of arbitration is argued 

From this for suppressing of war and diluting flag-fury. 

The doctrine of Canning-Monroe is extended to Asia, 

Not withdrawn from America: time to remodel your bunting! 

As I said on a prior page, group all flag-stars in one star, 

For democracy is monarchy in relation to Union. 

Democracy seems to be planning a planetary circus. 

All for fun, or the worjd well won, is the popular motto. 

May Aurora restore me my youth in the land that adopts it ! 

153- 

Satiation insatiable wears out the heart of a people. 
No more imperial example of this than the Roman. 
They who seek to be great by depreciating others will vanish. 
The cumulative drunk of long power is exhaustive. 
Competition and counterpoise are essential with nations. 
The imperial example of disappearance was Roman. 
The affinity of all big republics for Cassarism 
Is not a phenomenon but a natural sequence. 
Be it modestly said, size is more imposing than system, 
Because human nature prefers impression to study. 
This is far from intending a slur upon popular oligarchy, 
The few who rule while the multitude deems them the people. 
This is. not dogma; I earnestly wish you disprove it. 
If you study power as an essence and not as a gewgaw, 
Power lodged in one man or a hundred millions, I care not. 
With no intermediate bufl^er, you will find the affinity. 
'Tis the buffing body that lessens the shock of the contact. 
Whether it be of menacing, bluffing or duffing. 
Now, what is the buffing body ? Do you really not know it ? 
Think a minute, and do not require me to be too explicit. 

154 



In the pure economic system no buffing^ is needed. 

But in that neither Csesar nor oligarch is permitted. 

There is no public good in mere inkroU, as such, of opinions. 

The pubhc mind is wholly concerned with equipment. 

I am not decrying free press, but crying for equipment. 

Whereof I sometimes see much, and more frequently nothing. 

It comes hard to admit the mercantile side of opinion, 

But you know that competition gives value to some of it, 

And again destroys that very value by giving it. 

I suppose that the fraudulent part of the freedom of printing 

Will yet cost the bloodiest war in the history of nations. 

War seems part of the inescapable scheme of punition 

Which the moral law inflicts on persistent transgressors. 

Why not see this law in advance, why wait to be punished ? 

If your miass be too blunt, are your prophets too dull to admonish ? 

154. 

The man who grieved Mr. Grievely to death says the ocean 
To his westward will soon belong as a lake to his country. 
Arbitration proclaimed the Pacific entire a free ocean. 
And the wing of the eagle will droop ere it touch its west limit. 
The open door is combined with free sea universal. 
Other nations will call a loud halt to this raging exclusionist, 
Whose expansion of head exceeds that of his country's dominion. 
Daniel Webster did relatively more without war than he with it. 
For he won half of Maine by concealing a map of Ben Franklin's 
And drawing his own ; a diplomacy true and colossal ; 
An emanation of intellect worthy the races. 
The several races from which Dan the Great was descended. 
Then he had his own way in settling the right of search question. 
Substitutor of ink for blood in the people's dominion, 
He achieved what the bloodshed of Eighteen-'Twelve left unsettled. 
He doubled a State with free seas for the pride of his country. 
The pen of Dan Webster won more than the sword of Napoleon 
From Britain, yet second-chop chaps in his country outrank him. 

ISS 



And then his campaign was to win not by insult, but sawder. 

Mr. Webster shot not, neither danced he the jig of the jingo; 

Nor did he whoop up the bhoys on any topic whatever. 

Ke locked up the cannon and sword and Hfted the swan-quill, 

This boundary giant, this statesman of sawder-won purpose, 

Whose words had a musket-fire courage in claiming conditions 

As he bended from greatness to cleverness for his object 

And upsprang like his figures of speech when ascension was needed. 

T bow to his fame whensoever I think of his innings. 

Lord Palmerston called them a British capitulation. 

Such is not in the ken of him who grieved Mr. Grievely. 

Daniel, this is the day of old friends who are doubtful of new ones, 

And I lovingly call thee for contemplation and contrast 

In thy Capitol niched as the statesman of fields which were pen-won. 

As cartographer alike of free State and free ocean. 

Who still livest the speechful Senator of the Silent ! 

155- 

Responsibility is vast in establishing commonwealth. 

It puzzled Cromwell, who affected political conscience. 

And much mind and force as applied on that side of the question, 

For a despotic theocracy then passed as a commonwealth. 

If you make a success in beginning and expect to continue it. 

Why is not the same breed required to maintain as to found it? 

This is an easy first lesson in anthropology 

And does not assail any institutions whatever. 

So long as 'tis easier to earn than to gamble, 'tis perfect. 

And that is, of course, the perfect condition of living; 

I mean earning, not gambling, of course, and in commonwealths also. 

All goes well in such conditions till the theory of manhood. 

That is, mere adultness holding quality in defiance. 

Primary quality, not that of claqueurs or cliques of society, 

Works a change plain to all men except the professional patriot ; 

He who more injures his country than all of its criminals 

If the systems of Moses or Christ or Mahomet mean anything. 

156 



Will some equalist tell us why nature dodges equality ? 
iHe who leads is superior ; the mere fact of leading is proof of it. 
jWhy not organize your system, then, by acknowledging it ? 
A first-class man is misplaced at a second-chop duty. 
Your office may be of an order fixt, not to be lifted. 
Yet you born to rise ; you must therefore ascend in the open, 
A new figure in ether, while routinists wonder and envy. 
Embracing the fate of the desk-bound and sourly admiring. 
Let us quit the queer magnification diurnal of trifles 
^nd think of the loss had Charles Dickens staid always reporter. 
My politics are not theocratic, but my views only godly ; 
By the personal standard of Cromwell, or Lincoln, or Washington ; 
I' hope that you grasp the wide range of this triple divergence, 
For no other three men of one race had less personal resemblance. 
If God intended republics to live as asylums, 
I humbly go on my knees to both God and republics, 
Since my scheme, if I had one, would be the scheme of the generous ; 
The word comes from genus, you know ; reflect on its meaning. 
Which is not that rich permit poor to live by their dictum. 
There is a queer little thing of surprise in republics ; 
Men seem to worry so much in the love of their countries. 
They love not like monarchists, solidly, careless of windhorns, 
The patria a quiet fact not requiring their brassbands. 
The fife, drum and trombone of the private and public ambition. 
Yet I do love their breeziness as I found it in Chili. 
Perhaps God intended them for asylums and empires. 
The asylum being built on the drawing power of space empty, 
And the empire-part on gratuitous grasping ambition 
Such as drove Britain all over the world as a planter, 
With this difference, that Britain needed the space for the planting. 
How slowly our race becomes wise, learning what it should bet on ; 
And Britain, I fear, is betting big confidence falsely ; 
And I shall not defend nor excuse if therein I bet falsely ; 
If my fear be baseless, glad shall I be to proclaim it. 
What is giant prosperity worth if it lead you to worry 
In this lavish love of your country and pride in its fortune ? 

157 



Thou shalt not covet, whether republic or kingdom, 
Though manifest destiny impel ye to civilize others. 
Yet burn not with love of your country for others' possessions ! 
Let each nation establish a college of ethics for patriots 
Where the selfish stentors of public rage may learn justice. 

156. 

Shall I not rail at the ill in republic or kingdom ? 

I will ! There is tone as distinguished from wealth, there is morals, 

Both genuine yet if the public desire them for business. 

There is true independence unbought by the cash of the commonwealth, 

Like that of William Pitt, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster. 

Where is the man who dare spout against true independence 

Or high mind proud to pay its own wav for the honor and glory ? 

Let him stand up and be counted in meeting indignant ! 

The inkshed of possibilities does not concern us 

When we know by possession and contrast how different the values. 

The citizens in mass-meeting assembled have spoken; 

They have passed resolutions ; their gist I have put in this canto. 

157- 

Select your candidate solely as qualified wcalsman; 
Let his income slide ; the bigger it is the more narrow 
For the popular cause will be the mind of its owner. 
Senator Hill said the social life of his capital, 
Wherein money vies loudly, mixes the minds of the statesmen. 
Hill was abused for this truth as a snappy old bachelor, 
But I take this occasion to praise him for showing his colors. 
Moreover, that Senator might have been rich, and he is not. 
He seemed to have positive preference for mere public duty 
Over private gain, idle functions and blandishments vapid. 
He does not need my praise ; this book needs his example 
Of democracy as Father Jefferson practised it. 
Shall the sleep that duty needs lack respect with a people 

1S8 



Because richly gowned women wish statesmen to stand at their elbows 

While electric lights quintuple the dazzle of diamonds? 

By their fruits ye shall know them ; trees, men and political systems, 

And the women who, ill-gowned or well, build the systems or wreck them. 

Why is mine enemy less of a patriot than I am. 

Why less justified from the point of view of his country? 

'Tis not patriotism, but the right or the wrong of the question. 

If he see not the line, just tell him your sabre is sharpened, 

And ask him to arbitrate as he fingers the edge of it. 

Arbitration perhaps adds new sword for the conflict of nations. 

T wait to see who will be luckiest in the swing of it. 

In the long swing of long wind not required in the forums, 

In those forums where luck makes the law and no luck must obey it. 

Once you settle on politicians a system of government, 

They will constantly struggle to put more politics into it, 

More than is useful, more than belongs to it naturally, 

And therefore leading to schemes unwise and superfluous. 

Sometimes criminal, but paid always by taxing the people 

Whom these gentlemen of the makeshift drag in by devices. 

But the peculiar luck of this son of expediency 

Is that others pay for his fun and call him a patriot. 

But his luck, not the less, is the curse of those who exburse for it. 

They live but to muddle and multiply ; let us shun them ! 

Let us clarify and simplify for a contrast. 

158. 

Give me him who says what he means and says not till he means it, 

Who knows what he means and the hour he intends to perform it. 

Cease repeating the chances you give for the pardon celestial. 

You are in business called great ; that is, in your business. 

Try mine, and your greatness will jump from the dock for its failure ; 

Or I will try yours, and die burnt with the shame of my fiasco. 

It is our business to learn the true meaning of business. 

And that experts in one are poor amateurs in another. 

Try to settle this fact in your mind and spare good people's feelings 

159 



iWho know that they know what you do not, and you what they do not. 

Greater than poet the cook, for she placates the stomach. 

The organ that placates another to suffer the poet. 

Greater than Jacob the dentist ; he stoppeth the toothache, 

In its rage defiant of patriarchal injunction. 

Greater than statesman the court-fool ; he makes more men happy, 

Often softening the temper that tends to break treaties unwisely. 

The satirist is the surgeon-general of politics ; 

He dissects and shows genius up an electrified manikin. 

From Solomon to Sam Tilden what sage was an optimist ? 

Speaker Tom Reed called a statesman a dead politician ; 

A wonderful epigrammarian and more is Tom Speaker. 

He who lacks repute finds difficulty with the publisher; 

He who has much finds the publisher slow to admit it ; 

He who bothers with "readers" dies like Dumaurier and Westcott. 

Their interests clash with the clang of a million of hautboys. 

Thus, how shining soever your merits, 'tis hard to be happy. 

V/hat signified reward to Prometheus or to Columbus ? 

All that fire has created and ravaged has paid not the glory 

Wherewith fire as a possible force vivified the first titan. 

Nor could contineruts in fee simple remunerate the later. 

159- 

I would like to make Governor Clark of Arkansas immortal. 
I expect honest lawyers to praise me for what I am saying. 
That pop-sovereignty peoples make laws is merely a fictioru 
Law jobs are put up, and electors free vote to confirm them. 
In free country no fun is so fine as to roast the Palladium. 
Why should the shyster have private power of subpoena 
With penalty for contemipt of court if you scorn him, 
Though no court ever judged of his malice nor saw the subpoena? 
That is strictly arresting by warrant without a court-process. 
No other trick played is so low on the citizen's freedom. 
The Shah of Persia, barbarian, would scorn to descend to it. 
A subpoena ought to be issued the same as a warrant ; 

160 



That is, by a court and not by ten thousand practicians. 
This is no personal complaint ; I have not been arrested. 
Is every attorney both judge of the court and a bailiff 

As to ordering arrest and executing the order? 

There is no law, said Governor Clark of Arkansas, 

Addressing a graduating class intending to practice it. 

Brave Clark, I can never shout up to the height of your merit ! 

Something else stirs the popular mind ; let it win your attention ; 

The citizen's right to respect in the duty of witness. 

The despotism of the bench and browbeating forensic 

Are rankly offensive to subjects who cherish their freedom, 

And in some whom they anger incite to suppressio veri. 

Iiiiidgine a court keeping back what it tries to elicit! 

Let the patriot quit screaming and tranquilly try to reform this. ' 

The rights o' man are not lost in the box testimonial ; 

Remember this, lawyer and judge in your manners o' John's reign. 

Not alone more wise in his rights is a witness, but freer 

In the lights of this age, which is not that of menace and stultus, 

In opinion of those who live not out of corporate dividends. 

To enslave a man neither quickens his conscience nor binds it. 
This is psychological talk, high above courthouse jargon. 
More in accord with the freedom and rights of the subject, 
And designed to sustain the dictum of Clark of Arkansas. 
To provoke declaratio falsi suppresses your purpose. 
The truth is, our laws are due to the ages called middle 
Combined with the syndicate section that governs our era. 
Thus putting the double feudalism on top of us 
Of caste and capital ; and yet, O God, how free we are 
To tell of our freedom ! How our double-barons laugh at us ! 
They are free from all fear when they hear us shout of our freedom. 
'Laws are often terribly wrenched to the whims of the moments 
Wherein clamor for justice means passion for personal oblation, 
The Pharisee's shriek for a sacrifice to his virtue. 

In such case I should think manly men would be tired of administering them 
Not proud of the duty of mere penological agents. 

161 



i6o. 

Do you admire what is homogeneous in finance, 

Provoking- fiscal debate by the mile acrimonious ? 

Exclude the products of paupers, but welcome the paupers 

With gates open so fast that hydraulic power cannot shut them. 

The Lord loveth a cheerful giver of cosy asylum 

Who hopeth no other reward than a satisfied conscience. 

He searcheth the heart till he findeth the ultimate motive, 

But how yourn protecteth the earner except in low wages 

No one else seeth. Doth your labor get wealthy so quickly 

That it needeth a legal restraint against rich men's excesses? 

Requireth it regeneration by aliens and paupers? 

The efifect of the open gates is more obvious on dividends. 

Cannot your workingmen see the dividend end of it? 

That is, how the end which they grasp is forged to deceive them. 

Or is it obvious only to asses and aliens ? 

Pick out the wit and heave out the apostle Bill Fatv/it, 

Who stuffeth the welkin with guff in behalf of the opulent. 

i6i. 

A want of the age is new phrases for higher expression, 
Mutually raising the thought and being lifted by it; 
Easing thought as a process, and more inspiring to thinkers, 
Swift, symmetric and fluent to quicken the thinker's expression, 
Yet in form to impress both the ear and the mind of the people. 
Feudalism survives in language and laws ; let us cast it ! 
Phrase without form cannot live, but form is its own phrase, 
And would be creative of phrase if words were forgotten ; 
A phase of phrasing which grammars are not apt at raising. 
The old stone gods toss no terms, yet the greatest of poets 
Have filled not the soul with such beauty so long and so often, 
Though some of them vainly strove to be gods by describing them. 
Past ideals surrender to Venus, Diana, Apollo, 
■Or win by the standards evolved by the genii of Kronos. 

162 



They affirm the dominion of form in the temple of silence, 

Mutely disdainful, defiant of speechman or poet. 

The new fellows seem not up to surpassing the old ones. 

But this question is mixt, and I care not to mix myself with it. 

I observe no successor to Sophocles nor to Bryant, 

And if I may take the publishers' word, none is wanted. 

By the way, why does any one write, why does any one publish ? 

Some son of the gods from idyllic Olympus a truant 

Should furnish new phrase for a razzle and lock the old poets, 

So as to encourage new men of letters and publishers, 

New phrase-forms or ideas, or go home and be spanked for his truancy. 

162. 

An idea that is great importeth one that is greater, 

For the greatness of God makes exhaustion merely suggestive. 

Manifest destiny. My Syndicate, and ideal expansion 

As well as geographic, are ever my themes of insistence. 

An idea that suggests the exhaustion of him who conceived it 

Carries a morgue effect on the ethical system. 

To the strenuous composers of music, distinct from melodic, 

I commend this thought, and to poets who fondle a vision 

As though they expected no second chance at conception. 

But 'tis hard to be wholly sustained in a great composition. 

If you be unforgiving and bitter toward the unequal 

In a work of high purpose, whether as reader or critic. 

Try to surpass him ; and then you may beg your own pardon. 

Do not dig in your mind for the spring of your inspiration ; 

Wait till, like a geyser of ether, it pour through an inkhorn. 

Spontaneity means sustension of theme ; nothing else does. 

Do not write against space ; let space wait till your genius boils over ; 

Then the reader will say that your work is redundantly equal. 

162^. 

Anglo-Saxon has loomed and been boomed since some seventy millions 
Of millionaires licked seventeen millions of bankrupts non-Saxon, 

163 



With Our Navy holding- up Europe to help them to victory. 

This wonderful Anglo sect set a-foot a republic 

And invited all sects and sectarians to share in its benefits. 

None so lowly nor low as to be fitly marked for exclusion 

Provided his skin should be white ; other skins must be native. 

The guests went by millions. Would that republic be luckier 

As homogeneously Saxon, or as compositely polyglot? 

Those not of this Saxon descent, but living by language, 

Common law and statute of England, repudiate the Saxonism 

Which glorifies them in beneficence hopeless from others. 

Since all others who tried failed to radiate the beneficence. 

Here is nature's vastest manifestation of gratitude! 

Ponder ; bethink ; saturate yourself with the circumstance ! 

The polyglotters o' freedom estopt not that commonwealth 

From becoming imperial by drift if not by intention. 

Neither England nor Britons unmixt there could have done worse with it. 

Or better; 'tis whether your preference be freedom or empire, 

As the two have been shouted within that divided democracy. 

The moral, I ween, is that politics are debasing 

When they try to limit expansion to satisfy freedom, 

Or make liberty consistent with empire unwilling. 

Not of system or name is this cause, but wholly of nature. 

Anthropological science alone can save governments 

From crime or mistake, moral law being condition integral 

Of such science, and of politics not; and there is the wrecking-point. 

I indicate humbly the fact ; will you mend it or end it. 

Or admit human government hopeless without false pretences ? 

163. 

When a man is in all things "so great as to be a great poet 
He should shed the great bard and combine for career of more profit. 
Why should he worry and waste himself out with the Muses? 
There are always nine chances to one that the bard will be jilted. 
If you know of another dalliance so futile, pray print it. 
yEschylus might have been king had he not been great poet. 

164 



He fought at Marathon, Salamis and Plataea, 
And ashore or afloat was an adept in serving his country ; 
As adept as he with a pint of Celt blood or two gallons, 
The Celt, the most chronic of patriots, no matter whose country. 
Likewise for tragedy and trilogy he took prizes. 
But Sophocles beat him at last ; when Marraska and envy 
Drove him to tale-telling out of the school that was tragic, 
Or to forming new school with himself as the hero and victim, 
Thus making him of his peril-won honors oblivious. 
He blew on the women and mysteries of Eleusis, 
Whereby he went near to surpass in himself his Prometheus. 
Theri he volunteered as an exile for sake of appearance, 
The Greek way of appearing not to need to be exiled. 
Whereas he should have staid home and done chores Demosthenic, 
Should have made himself the iconoclast of the fetiches. 
Paving new ways for the mind with the heads of the humbugs. 
But at Gela he sulked in clime ardent and clear and Sicilian, 
And he brooded and sat in the sun v/ith a jug of Marraska, 
Sorry that being a poet had kept him from being a greater. 
Regretting too late his devotion, misplaced while resplendent. 
Sorry for what might have been, and that is the acme of sorrow ; 
On a lawn by a forest encircled sitting in solitude. 
Immortal remorse graven at threescore-and-ten on his features. 
As we know by a likeness which Attic art only could leave us. 
Unless some sly fiend cut his name on the bust of another, 
Noble his head, bald, and notable for a poet. 
Since the bard-head is often inverse to the size of its genius. 
An eagle aloft mistook it for something much harder. 
And without either notice or malice dropped on it a turtle. 
Sad, Marraskan and tragical end of the great tragic poet ! 
Had he made himself otherwise great he would have known better 
And had won a crown which had hidden his own from the eagle, 
Doubling his age as the friend of the gods with Marraska, 
The sole wine divine, which they shipped him from Chios to Gela, 
Never dreaming, I deem, the last scene with the pinion-borne tortoise, 
Since 'tis part of omniscience to see not the things it approves not. 

165 



164. 

Can you namie a big art that is not made a bigger by patrons, 

Or an art that drops not from its primacy in their absence, 

From the Httle Greek states through the popes to a late Duke of Weimar ? 

A muster-roll of high genii fromi Phidias to Goethe 

Attests, but their names might deprive my long lines of inflection, 

Or the sound with the sense which, if any, should roll in the numbers. 

Moreover, I am not an encyclopedia gratuitous. 

Goethe was great, if the Alemans wish us to think so. 

Although to write Faust needs a character close to Mephisto; 

And some of his conduct Mephisto would hardly descend to, 

Whose greatness consisteth in minimizmg his failure, 

This ubiquitous No in the scheme that succeeded creation. 

I regret the degree of the evolution Teutonic, 

Indeed, as I sometimes reflect how the Deutschers adore him, 

Referring to Goethe, you know, not the friend of his hero. 

His disciples reciprocate this with the pity Germanic. 

There will never be in this country a cult of such genius. 

The devil does well enough here without cultivation 

And without commending the poets who best comprehend him. 

But I am sinful myself and would not be censorious, 

Though I see not why Goethe should ridicule the Almighty, 

Since the second cause cannot discuss with the first on one level. 

Tell us, Pride of the Germans, something not found in your Faust-fun: 

Why should the finite seek to encircle the infinite, 

And lapse to sardonics as soon as it fails of its purpose ? 

Great or little, Goethe was due to that old Duke of Weimar, 

His Columbus who spared him the early base fate of Charles Dickens. 

165- 

Ecclesiastes am I, well of age in my cycle. 

The high-priest of freeing the mind, wishing you may go higher 
And be your own pontifex ; there is nothing else in it. 
Right is as we see it, and wrong ; they are not on their merits. 

166 



Absolutism, democracy, socialism, the numerous religions, 
Individualism, altruism, corporationism or modern methods, 
Keep the sacred and secular turnpikes that lead us to happiness, 
But we all quarrel so by the way that nobody gets there. 
If I could perceive the right as it is and enforce it. 
Not centennial should be the crown of my life, but millenial. 
Once I might 'scape the calvarium provided for prophets 
Who dare to foresee, for whom systems existent are bogus. 
The blame is not mine that I lived, since I dodged not a missile. 
Hfred himself lately sneered that this world is unworthy my graces ; 
The boy, young enough for my grandson, makes me a funblock. 
Great age should make way for fresh youth ; 'tis the rule of his people. 

Where grave problems, reduced to fun-terms, find solution in laughter. 

He is one of a type that big money is making too common, 

And that little money, ere long, will make mighty uncommon. 

Satiation Neronic sO' puts him in need of sensation, 

He would turn Torquemada in order to stay in the funring. 

Relatively nothing was worse in the days that were paynim. 

Wealth develops the personal side, and ignores all the other sides. 

Exceptions prove the rule ; mine are bursting with evidence, 

Though all in our race would not fill up one page in its history. 

Love of denial goes with riches ; here is a chance for it, 

For several long and lawyer-like butts in rebuttal. 

The gentleman was not invented till after the Caesars ; 

Their blood, rich in other productions, omitted this species. 

But one there was who anticipated the standard. 

I refer to Maecenas, a Roiman rich man and commander. 

No canonized Christian, so far as I know, has surpassed him. 

Though Lord Dorset of William the Third may survive as his equal. 

Infer not a canonized Dorset, but one who deserved to be, 

Maecenas wasted no wealth on the platitude-temples, 

But by singling out special genii became an immortal. 

The Augustus of private life and the honors of civism. 

Not field nor sea-gifted, like Scipio or Marcus Vipsanius ; 

Not a sculptor nor poet nor painter like several eternized, 

He gave lustre like Horace and Virgil to Rome and all ages, 

167 



And glorified us with what genius, not learning, created. 
These early great things, due Maecenas, made later things easier. 
Our honor is to be learned in some of his proteges. 
Save for him, many grand patriae-glorise would have gone stillborn, 
Precurrent numen of type of a later acceptance, 
Though the modern ideal omits the best traits of the Latin. 
But fate has a faith in some men who lack faith in the fateful. 
I kick not at the gibe nor the nibs of my Cardinal Giltveal, 
Though I might; having been little flattered or spared in my journey. 
Can I sharpen the wit of a friend? Why, if so, I am mirthful. 
May I furnish some fun in old days ? The Lord send me the chances ! 
Am I the chump of false friends ? Even such Edmund Burke was. 
Mock me well while I last ; I may not amuse you forever. 
I love the people well ; no man loves them trulier. 
Nor more sympathizes with popular systems and struggles, 
When the millionaire-gog or the poor-gog perverts not their formulas. 
If I call them the children gf God and the heirs of his glory, 
You will say some one else said it first ; but why don't you work on it ? 
Why dedicate it to eloquence only, not practice ? 
What sect would revive a John Knox as Prometheus of Duty ? 
The modern fangles as substitutes for staid morals 
Perish one by one like empirical panaceas, 
Yet you turn into fun all you cannot turn into money, 
Whether it come from the publisher, pulpit or theatre, 
Till the true man is he void of creed ; he at least has the room for one. 
If vox popuU be vox dei, to what purpose the deus ? 
The phrase in itself involves a sharp self-contradiction 
Vox populi vox suae et generis sui. 

If the great human mind had been worked as its author intended, 
The newest great thing to be said would have long been a platitude. 
If ascension depend on society as we know it, 
I leave you "^o contemplate yourself as an optimist ; 
To derive your delight from that source, while I look for another. 

168 



i66. 

Immortal fun being the ultimate aim of My Comedy, 
I subjoin a god-politic instance nautic and Thalian. 
Lyseus, deliverer from care, was a name of Dionysus, 

Who is followed and worshipped and loved best as Bacchus the vine-god, 
Yet mayhap not so much for the vine as its product libative. 
But he has not always appeared to mankind as Lyaeus ; 
He sometimes seemed filled with contempt for himself in that character, 
As might be inferred when filled up with the pleasures of Bacchus. 
One day he conceived the idea of going a-yachting. 
And freakishly chose as companions some pirates Tyrrhenian. 
They were true to their trade, not caring to know the care-chaser, 
And with instinct professional instantly thought about ransom. 
Leaving Icaria astern with straight course set for Naxos, 
The Tyrrhenian gentry quick loaded their new friend with slave-links, 
Devoting him unto bondage should ransom default them. 
Then Lyseus took care to be very like some other fellow. 
He tipped the wink to the chains and they fell from his ankles. 
Since a wink is as sharp as a file to the links on a god's leg. 
Then he paced the poop-deck with grand mien as a lion commanding 
Not only the ship or a fleet, but the whole of Tyrrhenia, 
And sent a deep-growling, famished bear into the forecastle. 
Not freed from care but to consternation delivered, 
The sailors rushed wildly on deck, where they found masts and rigging 
Suddenly serving as vine-poles, with grapes grown autumnal, 
September grapes prone for the press, while nymphs playful and tuneful 
Chanted an ode to the ship which entirely becalmed her. 
The sailors jumped overboard, dazed into loss of their senses, 
From the vineyard-yacht and menagerie run by a lion. 
They did not drown, but were happily formed into dolphins. 
The enchanted and elegant fish which are favorites of Thaumas, 
And which are restored to the sea when the fishermen net them 
Because dolphins are grateful and into the nets drive the tonni. 
Blessed be gratitude, freedom of dolphins and commerce ! 
And sailors are certainly freer as dolphins than sailors, 

169 



And inspectors of customs associate. I ween, not with dolphins. 
Unawares those tars fooled with a god ; but I point not the moral. 
A tale that tells not its own tale is too thin for adorning. 
Dionysus was friendly with Neptune, so Nep lent him sailors, 
Whom in very slim friendship he put upon duty eternal ; 
And in vacht of those suicide-pirates transformed into dolphins 
Lyreus. deliverer from care, sailed on care-free to Naxos. 
There Bacchus found Ariadne, the beauty deserted. 
Whom he changed from the bride of Theseus to that of Lyceus,. 
Delivering her promptly from care as to future subsistence, 
•A fate in which uniform luck follows not second spouses. 
For panoplied pride give me her who has captured a lover ; 
And the most self-satisfied creature in myths or carnalities 
Is the nude Ariadne, riding the panther of Theseus, 
Tamed for her promenade by the hero Ionian 
\\liom she previously tamed, and who later resented the bondage.. 
Yet women admire not the men who are fools for their prizes ; 
Thev pity them, wishing them not the less lovely, but stronger, 
As though to resist fascination yet ever pursue them. 
Praising Julius. Cleopatra covered a sneer at Antonius ; 
Though more to be loved, if less praised, was the rebel of Actium,. 
Who claimed the Herculean descent and looked worthy the honor. 
But Lvasus he summoned his boonest aboard of both sexes, 
Whereat ever}- two did pair on as a bride and a lifegroom, 
When began the truly immortal of yachting excursions. 
Immortal in fun not alone in Tyrrhenia but elsewhere ; 
Excursion where prizemug alone had excited new laughter. 
For laughter was large in those days, and mug not yet imagined ; 
Immortal because they have sailed on to this day from Naxos. 
And will sail through all eras and seas, godlike victims of yachting 
In a phantom dead beat to the windward of all who hunt trophies ; 
For the politics wise and just of care-chaser Lynsus 
\\'as to chase away care from himself and companions forever. 
Pan as their steward had laid all the gods under tribute. 
So that nothing was wanting nor missing for voyage never-ending 
Of a vessel that has not been since seen at sea nor in harbor, 

170 



For no glimpse of their fun might be caught by low tars nor dull landsmen, 

The orders of being most scorned by true pirates and yachtsmen. 

Thus Buccaneer-Bacchus-Dionysus-Lyaeus grew yachtgod, 

More triumphant than Rodney the weather-gage prizeman, or Jervis, 

And without the unpleasant red decks of Les Saintes or Saint \"incent. 

Not even all gods can prolong without cloying a festival, 

But Bacchus grew great in a fate that would sate Musagetes, 

And communicated his zest to his boomers undying. 

The honeymonths ran into honeyyears not to be numbered. 

The Tyrrhenian sun arose only to gild a new pleasure, 

The 2^Iediterranean moon to light up a new caper. 

E\CT. the twins of the gates of sleep forgot functional duty, 

Vigilant of the fun, since the sports of the god do not weary. 

What of the gods if all goddesses were as Artemis? 

The daughter and son of Latona might fight on the principle, 

Or account be requested of Zeus of hiatus incredible. 

But I close, vowing nothing else like it in yachting nor politics. 

The best scenes from the fun-stage may not be transferred unto paper. 

Alas for the point where the poet dares not be descriptive! 

167. 

The duet of a swan and a dolphin unites two big empires 
In entente as long as the song; but if one dive for white-bait 
And the other chase sturgeon, duet and entente are suspended 
Till appetite apathetic restore them to singing ; 
Till interests appeased and no new ones rewake them to music 
Where no strain is attached to a word from the Northeast Pacific. 
Therefore swim deep, O ye whitebait, and far, O ye sturgeon. 
And be satisfied, O ye interests, and sleep to this hymnal, 
That the singers untempted subsist on their own inspiration, 
While the interesting nations enchanted forget to be touchy. 

168. 

To treat a topic seriatim does not strengthen it ; 
Not necessarily ; examine your disposition 

171 



Or force at the moment ; bright things are dull to a headache. 

Continuity is more exigent than impressive, 

No matter the splendors, if long enough to oppress you. 

The question is one of tiring : of blackmail in Egypt, 

Or of ingratitude for pouring oil on your seaways, 

Of holding one Continent up while your ships skirted others. 

Recur with delight has more value than boredom of duty. 

Or the long drawn insistence which poseth in some minds as logic. 

This explains my design of appearing a trifle inchoate. 

Symmetry may be sacrificed for new pleasure without it. 

169. 

How rich soever you grow, become not an agnostic. 
That is a luxury wholly too dear for a Plutus. 
You may think it is not, but the judgment is deeply mistaken. 
Not those dying of hurry, but those whose spare time is three-quarters 
Of their waking lives, are the people whom you must satisfy. 
Such only are thinkers, and mighty sincere in conviction ; 
They may also be narrow ; but that is because they are human. 
Independence was once proportioned to wealth, but no longer. 
The proletariat is too close on the proprietariat. 
Yet nobody seems to see how it may get any nearer. 
While the man with the most has the same advantage as ever, 
And the man with too much is the fellow who needs your compassion. 
No species of union seems to get either away from him. 
A million a year for him who can manage two hundred 
Is offered ; of course on impossible terms ; but it sounds grand, 
And impresses the tramps with the frightful burden of riches. 
But not one of the brood of Plutus cuts up his fortune ; 
Rather every one so manages as to augment it. 
Though prone to pay annual pile to be eased of such burden. 
There is some affectation here, but it will not last always. 
After the mass shall catch on to the curves of possession 
Of the ensconced minority, a great change will touch us. 
Plutus cannot afford to defy the old moral order 

172 



Through new years, unless he can change the old moral order. 
Meanwhile let him capture the sources of government moral. 
In a church the mernbership would be proud of his riches ; 
They would speak of them oft if he might not scatter them broadcast, 
Whereas if he scattered there would not be any to speak of. 
The rich man who gave all he had will never be mentioned, 
And a chance he may find for enlarging the eye of the needle. 
If I draw from the welkin ideas, is it waste of high labor? 
If I shovel them up from inverted dome, will you grasp them ? 
Yes ; the good time is coming ; any fellow may sing of it. 
Though none can tell when it will catch us : there will then be no anarchy, 
Nor threats of it, but society ordered and graded 
To please the anarchists who would otherwise capture it. 
To-day's fever will then have burned itself out, and its victims ; 
And the law of the fittest survival at last will be justified 
Even to those demons of query the gods of conundrum. 
This is a brief psycho-plutological canto 
Of new music, requiring some time for the ear to accept it. 
Composers differ on themes, as virtuosi on instruments. 
And peoples agree not on measures of verse, nor on organs. 
For all instrumients are organs in meaning organic. 
Some admire the cornet and the snare-drum, but give me the fiddle. 
Which prolongs from the stage to the stars a straight note or a tremolo. 
Brass is both ardent and burnished in Wagner and Talos, 
And Bellini sang while Tancioni scored notes of his arias. 
Donizetti favored the strings of the cat, like a poet. 
And the dulcet key-tubes which require but the orphic inflation 
Instead of the wind which expands in the horns of the sound-storm. 
Homer, Pynq Bhuttun and Thomson prefer the hexameter 
As an undulous means of alleviating giant conceptions. 
And I favor fonetik spelling ; it would lose to the future 
The works not worthy preserving, while those of high value 
Would be fonetized for fresh days : in this scheme there is money 
For new authors, publishers and fonetik professors. 
And by far the most feasible means of sound purging of letters. 
I am not a reformer, remember ; but you might become one. 

173 



170. 

The newest man is the great with a great many women. 

The trait is not bad, although chances you find not to Hke it, 

And in such situation the moral law offers no comfort. 

But the circle of joy for the women is ever expansive; 

If you perish, Cleopatra calls forth a fresh Marcus Antonius. 

I have had my estate at the top, and was cut when they cut me. 

But I long ago learned this is part of the order of nature. 

When a woman is born for a freak she is not to be constant 

And should not be blamed ; take large view of the topic, and early. 

The 'earlier you drop to the fact the less you are lacerate. 

Some freaks, while they do love, surpass the Blonde Tawny of Egypt. 

Thus you get it intense, brief and compact ; not drawled through a lifetime, 

And twice in a lifetime, or oftener ; which varies the average. 

I know not an equal example of strict compensation. 

171. 

You are lost in love. I deplore, but I will not describe you. 
Does it seem that because you yearn to be true to one woman 
Who has space in her soul for a score of such fellows, you selfish, 
Loving her only for what she may add to your glory, 
Not reflecting that in her view you are simple absorber. 
That she ought to sacrifice nineteen parts of her nature 
To endow the conceit of a burrowing love with the twentieth, 
A mole-love that has burned its ground-way to her centre of radiance ? 
Unjust twenty to one would she be not to radiate you from her, 
To burn on a prong of her light your mere ego-ambition. 
Assenting or not, think this out ere you take to the bottle. 
Let a woman remember a lover is always inferior ! 
Man loves himself first, without room in himself for a woman. 
If he loves not himself, he is not worth a look from a woman. 
And infatuation destroys her the day she denies this. 
Thus, in syllogism or outside it, love is a vacuum ; 
An estate of wile without air to inhale when you get there. 
.My seventy-five years of past-youth observation confirm this. 

174 



172. 

When you catch a great man, take him on for the worth of his calibre 

So far as it adds to the good of the state or his fellows 

In some tangible way, in some way which the world may take hold of. 

Lump not his defects with his service; you make a bad subject. 

Who is just so much worse by the rank his achievements have given him, 

By condoning ten faults because chance caught one spark of his genius. 

He, omitting the chance, might have mouldered like millions ungifted; 

Ungifted, I mean, in the chance, which is part of the genius. 

You will find, on impartially reading the log of Columbus, 

Even he stained himself with a lust for the gold of the Indios. 

Materialist as well as idealist was Columbus, 

Witn i.^?d lumen-laden for any species of landfall. 

The talent to see the best side is the talent to win by. 

Of what use is the merit that eddies not in with the winner? 

It might make you deep and incisive about Spain and Cuba, 

The States, and that contradiction in terms, Christian soldier. 

Devils may fight in cause just and the gods be mistaken, 

But the arm of the Prince of Peace can in no case swing sabre. 

Christ is impartial as soon as you open the picnic 

Of blood, and his genuine soldier takes himself out of it. 

Real faithful who touch it are commonly slandered, like Vandewater. 

Let your moral courage appear in your reasons material 

And choose winning men, and the world will be quick to support you. 

Nothing requires so much bravery as lifting the beaten. 

He might have been right, but he did not win out ; and our nature 

Cheers the admiral as though every throat were the winner's, 

Whereas probably not three per cent, ever won one percentum. 

There is nothing Samaritan here. I admire Admiral Dewey 

Not so much for his fight, though all admiration is lost on it, 

As for the strategy whereby he got into it 

And his tactics in conducting it. The rest was not difficult 

In the circumstances, though quick and brilliant to dazzling. 

But there was nothing Christian that day at Manila. 

A man truly Christian may float into battle-necessity, 

175 



But he will deplore the necessity, and think it more Christian 
If his God and his country put oft* the occasion of slaughter. 

173- 

Man is a shouter and writer and singer of weakness, 

But not of the true strength-dispensing remedies for it. 

In his most important relation he seems least successful, 

If success may be judged by net outcome instead of apology. 

Wedlock is matter of varied conviction and practice, 

And therefore its secular base should be well comprehended. 

The fact that a man cannot live with a woman is nothing 

Against him per se ; but hold fast to per se in this instance. 

Precisely the same is equally true of a woman. 

I descant on the sphere where 'tis found ; you may chant from the other. 

Either may have both the leaning and habit of virtues. 

Yet each be legitimately unfit for the other. 

Or both may be more or less vicious, yet not incompatible. 

Not the God who made human nature, but they who immade it, 

Are due to explain, and to tell my omitted conclusions, 

Which belong to this world, and affiliate not with another. 

174. 

Wherein is true strength ? Perhaps in propounding conundrums. 
Great force may appear in the treatment of feeble conceptions : 
A characteristic this of symposian intelligence. 
Take a House debate of pure partisan rage for example. 
Or a House far away in a hurry to back up Don Jingo, 
Some statesmen are great by mere force of proclaiming the obvious, 
Which depends on the size of the mind needing light from the obvious. 
Tyndal and Chamberlain greatly dropt down to this duty 
When majority smote the land with its pious imperceptions. 
These are typical men who must always find British successors 
Unless Britain be destined for prey of such statesmen as Coqcourt. 

176 



If the Empire be worth prolonging, this type must prolong it. 

I have examined all types ; that explains my insistence. 

I have studied them closely around the globe, and you have not, 

So I pray you in conscience, reconsider your premises 

As to high moral men standing equal with graspers imperial ; 

They crack bottles whenever they read a high moral oration. 

Since it weakens the British Empire so much in their favor. 

Who would let us alone if sure it would pay to attack us? 

There is nothing to eat in symposian-millenial ideas! 

Annihilate them as destructive of national subsistence ! 

A province let go would be instantly tariffed against us ; 

This is so self-evident that it bores one to say it. 

y^^ Britain alone either can be or dare be freetrader, 

Despite the fact that all tariffs are fixt to corral her. 

Needs and events, not theories and teachers, breed patriots. 

Abstractions pushed too far against needs might make traitors. 

Aristotle labored to make Alexander a patriot ; 

A mere vulgar bummer and conqueror came of the lessons. 



175- 



There is a danger-point of mistaking your prestige 
For the popular will. The fact that you did some great service. 
Provided you did, though some half of the people deny it. 
Sets you not above all fellow-subjects on every state project. 
Your unwidening cranium holds not the horizon of wisdom, 
No matter the size of your hat nor the height of your forehead. 
You are now at the period of wreckage from phrenic expansion 
In a vessel too little to limit the swell of the cargo. 
If your prestige inflame minority into majority 
When, on mere merits, the measure could never be carried, 
Your prestige works evil, though your vanity may not admit it. 
In no other respect the example of old Cincinnatus 
So impresses me as in freedom from Roman big caput. 

177 



176. 

No conscience, no morals, no vices and plenty of money, 

What is to hmder him who has them from being happy? 

And if he be happy, why should he not be a model ? 

A villain would almost do for a model, if happy. 

Do you know of a declaration that guarantees happiness, 

Or the next thing to it, the right to pursue it forever ? 

Proposition safe ; not inviting misuse or excesses, 

Since the winners are so few they discourage sequation. . 

Happy he who finds satisfactory reward in the long run ! 

I am old enough to 'call many runs ; this is my longest ; 

A lifelong, long chase with the goal still just over the border. 

But I have diverged from another sort of a fellow. 

No struggle, no poignancy, perfect in circumspection. 

No feeling except the indifference required to be neutral, 

No temptation beyond the chronic instinct of grasping. 

If you speak of an agonized mind, that most dread of afflictions, 

He smiles, as if asked to partake of a rum-sour of Santa Cruz. 

Do you call him a scion of evolution or progress, 

'This youth whom we hope may expire by his own limitation, 

A foreign metropolite in pre-Raphaelite pigments. 

So lacking exemplar he is a new species in nature 

And art, with morals in dough, to whom luck gave his raiment. 

Whom a rise in the price of his credit-bought stock saved from bankruptcy? 

Better sin and repent and repeat than to be such a pastepot ! 



177. 

'KjO not horseback in style nor ascend nor alight from your chariot 
In manner excitant of envy in poor men and better. 
Your principal pleasure is that of exciting and snubbing. 
You whom this hits and fits, you like it not, but read it. 
You will do this once too oft : then your horses and wagons 
Will all be for sale, with a notable absence of buyers, 
For your fellows thereat will desire to seem poorer than churchmice 

178 



In order to stave off the day of the social despoilment. 
This threat is not new, but the fashion in which I present it. 
But as rich airs condemned you, the pauper ones will not reprieve you. 
The mass know a sham is a sham while affecting agreement 
Until they unite in a policy sure to defeat you. 
This has often been tried, but the triumph seems far off as ever. 
But if the unwinning mass would recognize labor, 
Absolutely ignoring capital as being their enemy ; 
And if this aggregate, as majority over minority, 
As the natural heirs of the earth, property being an artifice 
The mere recognition whereof w^as due to an error. 
If this mass would possess itself of the rights it was born to, 
' Then every known system, political, social, financial, 
Would tumble and crumble, spite of me and mine adversaries. 
Till the wealthy would eat their own gold in the rage of their hunger. 
But the friends of my youth, middle age and old age need not tremble. 
My great mass will no more do this now than when Moses was leader. 
In fact, they are further behind in my day than with Moses. 
Respect for the rights of property now is a fetich 
For which Christians suffer in ways Israel never permitted. 
There are too many novels and poems ; this is an evangel, 
A gospel of fun on your hating my country as patriot 
While shirking tough problems at home to prove love of your country, 
While I assail, incidentally, all sorts of systems. 
But the book-senemics, "literary advisers" of the print-publicans, 
Gowned-and-slippered and midnight-oiled for putting new lights out, 
Would hear of the thing you are reading only to damn it. 
But let us discuss in a way that shall lead to solution. 
In spite of the gents midnight-oiled for extinguishing genius. 
Discussion that solves not is useless humiliation, 
Though amusing to Editor Janus and selling his paper; 
Rolling the public mind in the taffy of irresolution 
As by Janus the Great, quondam friend of the late Mr. Grievely, 
Whose jubilee special career was wind-frayed at its ending 
In the Amagansett gale from Montauk blown to Brooklyn. 
Give human nature a rest from the making of pamphlets. 

179 



Discussion divided and Bismarck united the Germans. 

The educational horn from the top of its schoolhouse 

Is blown by the press ; its primary task is to blow it, 

The earning- of dividend-money being merely an incident. 

Maybe advanced speakers have shouted so much of advancement 

That I have unwittingly seized the control of their dicta. 

There is in the state something greater than free constitution, 

And that is the power to amend it ; let us amend it. 

Let us do something unconstitutional first, and then mend it 

God so loved the world that he gave it the means to be happy. 

But he dignified man by leaving him free to accept it, 

And man in his gratitude takes a long time for decision 

On an eternal theme without temporal interest. 

We are none of us wrong, but all right on a different basis. 

Physical good taste is a great abettor of morals. 

Some are Christianly right, and others not less so as heathen 

Because the press failed to wind the horn of the verities 

When the wind blew their way : they are not wrong, but innocent. 

The truth in their favorite printsheet arriving too tardy. 

Then others in Christian radiance are wrongful perversely, 

Yet right, too ; their perversity being not crime, but misfortune. 

Some are ists of the spirit ; but I am a simple carnalist 

Without spiritualistic trend to forbidden affinities. 

I affiliate without the mask of occultism, 

And in physical habits of living am not partiverous. 

But omniverous ; glad to get it and proud to digest it ; 

On my basis sounder than many young and univerous: 

'Tis a new word for the fellows who live by one system. 

Who begin by dyspepsia and grow to curative Mahomets. 

178. 

Judge not your friend by yourself in a circumstance similar. 
So to judge is a common and willing mistake, and injurious. 
If he ask your advice, bid him think to his private decision. 
There is more satisfaction in that than in failure and censure, 

180 



You should be just as careful about your advice as your money. 
Think of his temperament, moral force and temptation ; 
The violin-gamut is as nothing to this combination. 
Yours may wholly unfit you to be his preceptor or keeper. 
When moral force and temptation are each irresistible 
And colossal, you are not strong enough for a buffer. 
'Tis the buffing body again, and you are not in it. 

179. 

Why do I w^rite ? To inspire some one else to do better ; 

Better by pen, voice or arm ; what care I for the manner ! 

Or even by leg ; I am not yet too old for new ballet 

With coryphees flinging their figures in random symmetric. 

No man is great ; he may hap to be useful as agent, 

And the chance for so much or so little as that comes but rarely 

Francis of Verulam was mainly inciter in science ; 

The slaves of high phrase have done much to misplace him in history. 

The true leader is he whose best gift is the genius of optimism. 

You can always remain on top by being an optimist. 

Women love only the men to whom all things are roseate, 

Wlio are up with success, who have ceased to be bothered with process. 

When one optimism fails, be rapid to fondle another. 

This may be hard, but remember optimism is genius. 

The yearning heart puts the burning question ; who answers ? 

For the mioment none, but the question burns on until answered. 

Even Webster's great speech, the Paradise Lost of orations 

On a union it could not save, set up war to regain it. 

And that question verily burned four hard years until answered, 

Years that hardened the doubts of those who lack faith in the system. 

If Lord Bacon could ask me what is the use of this thesis, 

Aristotle might ask him the social worth of Induction. 

Nothing abstract is useful that cannot be put in the concrete 

For the living advantage in some way of every one living. 

There is no such thing as too much when you get it distributed. 

With the utile we live, while we starve on the deep and the splendid. 

181 



Beef against dreams ; or beef-dreams whence we waken to profit. 

We prefer not to have a great man, but a sanctified average 

Wherein every person is prosperous, sleek and self-satisfied. 

What shall we do to be saved? I mean in sense social. 

What shall we do to be saved ? Appoint a commission 

To teach a royal commission what to investigate. 

Whatsoever they do, some editor will be wiser. 

Some judgment-day waif strayed away to forestall it by sections. 

And we shall once more find the fun of airing the questions. 

Burn all the old premises up in the new burning question. 

Agree on the new ones and follow them out without flinching. 

Whithersoever the logic lead, accept the conclusion. 

The longer you dawdle, the more you at last must surrender, 

O ye to whom much was given and from whom will be taken 

All that you kept for yourselves while trustees for Another. 

1 80. 

Brotherhood of man is the hypocrite's tinkle of cymbal, 

The soundmg brass of the pharisee patriot parsonic, 

In its general acceptance. It hurts me to hurt your fine feeling's, 

But 'tis mere affectation to heap up the sanction privata 

On an universal fact about which you do nothing 

Unless to build platforms whereon to palaver concerning. 

This should be read at a moment when conscience is topmost. 

Eleemosynaries are overdone ; abolish their causes. 

Why not use this money for endowments of silent beneficience 

Which shall touch individual needs at the moment requiring it, 

Instead of eternally humming self-evident platitudes? 

In that the Psalmist, dead thousands of years, still excels you. 

If yO'U cannot surpass him, can you not chant something novel ? 

Is every prophet save Christ an organic charlatan, 

The evangelist of dogmatics masking the dollar, 

Bent only on massing his million while flaunting his ego? 

If you did not believe you should do something, you would quit talking. 

The design or device for the doing or dodging of duty 

182 



Is full proof that neither the mind nor the conscience is easy. 
All men are brothers simply because they can't help it : 
They cannot escape uniformity of relation. 
Perhaps if they could would do^ some twin good to each other 
As a substitute for the feeling of Cain toward Abel 
Which neutralizes the harmony of the brotherhood. 
Better deny murderer Cain as the second foreparent 
Than be brothers descended from him by both pulpit and pamphlet, 
But deficient of funds in the Bank of the Garden of Eden. 
Fraternity among the elect is my passion ; 
Fraternity with eclat, inspiration and brio. 
-Th-CD. why not elect everybody intO' my union? 
I would make demos as aristocratic as possible, 
And a Bank of Eden bonus should go with election 
As an act of my twentieth-century syndication. 

i8i. 

If you wish to be really great, rate your genius as soapfat. 
Suppressing yourself ere you set yourself up for a wonder. 
This will teach you self-sacrifice, hardest of all tasks to master. 
If you do not, some publisher's reader will save you the trouble ; 
Better save him the trouble while saving yourself disappointment. 
The best books are those never printed ; the next are the accidents 
Which slip into type through a lapse in the high gift of safety : 
Among these Rabelais and Quevedo, Suetonius and Byron. 
Shakespeare left his companio^ns to print him or leave him unprinted. 
The master of inwardness careless of fame or of plaudits. 
Indifferent to wriggles at footlights or text mutilation. 
Who had made his pile from his plays and gone home and was happy; 
Happier living in well-stocked home than in crown of dead poet 
Whose aureole waited a hundred years for the critics, 
Who would steal a rainbow to braid with a panegyric. 
Or festoon with sables your splendor, whichever come easier. 
Proud cynic, too proud even to woo the renown of the ages ; 
A species of after-death father of stirpes transcendent, 

183 



Or parent of posthumous tongues that recalled him to glory. 
So Apollo the god and -^^sop the slave was a genius 
Any one may possess, and it matters not what you may call it ; 
As to elasticity, the Monroe Doctrine keeps up with it ; 
Narrow minds only are troubled to limit its meaning, 
As patriots are troubled to widen or limit Monroeism ; 
Or to give it another name, which would simply mean genius, 
Or Monroeism, when found, with the still indefinable essence 
Of genius ; or the genius of James Monroe or George Canning. 
I started this book for a ringer, and am only half through with it. 
But this praise is mere heaping of phrase upon William of Avon, 
As likewise it is on the god of high tone and the negro. 
And on the gifted unknown who may grasp at their laurels. 
They are neither larger nor smaller for what I may say of them,, 
And their lily of fame 'neath your inch-thick of pigment might wither, 
As might that of Monroe or of Canning, their Doctrine once settled. 
I found a fair chance tO' pile words, and I let myself loose on it. 
The glorious Avonian indifference to posterity 
Almost equals the worship of William by those who came later. 
But between you and me I have no great opinion of genius, 
Judged by results, all the w^ay from Apollo to Cleveland. 
It may depend on Marraska, or result from peach brandy, 
Pamlico distillate being better than that of the Scio of Byron: 
I have sampled both freely, am cognizant in the premises, 
Petronius Arbiter of both Chesapeake and ^gean. 
And Marraska is not a circumstance to Pamlico, 
Or to little Delaware State, or the "east shore," of Maryland. 
I am grieved that its highest expressions but call for a higher. 
That its greatest achievements suggest me shortcomings long-legged 
In the supreme affair of content universal. 
Or sectional as to Luzon, Venezuela, or Cuba. 
In this aspect, up to date, there is only negation. 
Give us one complete man who shall lead to success all the peoples. 
Not a faction to fiction, but every race up to the real, 
Some Christ with a force of persuasion intense as his morals. 
Where no slaves shall pay taxes for privilege of building a hero 

184 



From some gory brute of the luck egotistic of flagdom. 
After victory with him you will form a new notion of genius. 

182. 

All things worthy to live shall be known and stay on. But who told you ? 

Is accident, fortune or kismet the friend of worth only? 

Thought aflame and the rage of the Past made the zenith of Egypt 

Lurid when savage Omar lit the bonfire papyric 

And smoked with contempt of its contents the Aboukir district. 

The magi deplore, though no magus can measure the void made. 

Was it so vast ? Could the library longer be useful ? 

May be that the light cxf its fire was its brightest instruction 

And that the future should thank the imperial incendiary. 

Perhaps they were burned to compel us to seek new ideals. 

Not a book in the lot had shown devotees how to be happy 

Unless on the basis of making' the best of bad bargain ; 

And all literature since that day has been stuffed with such counsel. 

If the lost books were par v/ith the new ones, the future lost little 

In the mind-fire which reddened the aged brown frown of the pyramids. 

Chance is on top after all, and is somewhat facetious. 

Was it chance or predestiny ? Let us stop the discussion. 

My lamps are not those of Melampus, nor are you Panoptes. 

183. 

One of the tomes said that God is a union of chances 
And that providence is such chances moving in union. 
Thus religion consists in adoring whatever is uppermost, 
As patriotism is adhering to the whim of the moment. 
I have made up my mind, as I call it, and wish it were stronger. 
There will be nO' genuine literature till some titan 
AVhose physical health shall be part of his genius Promethean, 
Some Hercules fused with Apollo, shall grasp every subject, 
Eliminate doubt, and anticipate every question, 
Taking first the Irish and Papal out of discussion, 

185 



By the combination of genius and physical vigor, 

By the perfect blend of enough without too much of anything. 

Till then let philosophy, love of the wisdom elusive, 

And balloon-trips in politics, romance, heroics and science 

Be the industry of the substitutes for my titan. 

184. 

Perception and ethics are sometimes the victims of sympathy. 

Much sudden gold may remodel the ways of the woman 

Whose character went awry in the stress to attain it. 

May be she has made your perception and ethics her victims. 

You may know what she is and prefer to say nothing about her. 

She may offer the grand ignore to her late antecedents 

And chase in new circles a life of reform on her lucre. 

But better have always been Vesta than once Magdalena ; 

And this is more pointedly true if she pose as a moralist. 

Unless she confess her experience and pray the high pardon. 

A man or a woman flies off from such parts of the decalogue 

As conflict with desires and ambitions, and writes up a substitute 

Seized while flying into or out of some mental activity 

For generations to follow as experience concreted. 

Nothing less trustworthy, if you stop to think into it ; 

The far-fallen angel trying to raise the slow-soaring. 

I like not the decalogue any better than you do, 

But must say that outside it I cannot find any salvation, 

Pietistic, commercial, social, or other worth seeking. 

In this canto I am intoning a lecture to lecturers. 

Be not loud in exhorting, but quiet in quitting your evil. 

Accept everything and do as you please in the end, like John Churchill,, 

Who appeared to be everything good and was nothing but Churchill. 

Yet be sure of your god before you drum others to serve him. 

You might reform once more ; then which god is the true one ? 

For you could not bet on them both even for purpose of platform. 

The saints never sinful can see the just end of punition, 

While to the ex-sinner blind pardon includes every virtue. 

186 



Let her reform but keep still, and not write, neither lecture. 

Satisfaction of personal ambition distributes no morals. 

And may mean disadvantage even to the satisfied party. 

You have done nothing altruistic in glutting your ego. 

One success may mean loss to all the other contributors. 

The quick need is redemption, not moral assumption by money, 

Et dela aux bonnes moeurs, qui sont loin, et si loin que je ne dis pas. 

185. 

Excessive patriotism rebukes the Most High, as I "view it. 

Who dares defy by rebuke the wrath of the Deity? 

He made Briton, Ethiopian, colonist and ex-colonist, 

And emigrant who, leaving nothing, goes to grasp everything 

Made by colonist and ex-colonist before his arrival. 

And the others ; and none of us slaves : have not all so proclaimed it ? 

Have we not with pigmies made treaties which treat them as equals 

In an international jumble of crazed affectation, 

San Marino, Andorra, with the interoceanic republic. 

The Pike's Peak of nations in application of suffrage? 

Monte Carlo, Hayti, Hawaii, and cannibal commonwealths 

Where soft voices and gentle manners indicate disposition 

To seduce you ashore for a banquet whereof you partake not ; 

Are these not treaty-equals with nations that laugh through a telescope 

At the microscopic equalities which amuse them ? 

Why should Hayti be independent and not Madagascar? 

Both black, the West Indians rise not to the African level. 

Nothing open to colonization but everything to barbarism 

If colonization be part of civilization ! 

That is planetary dogma, which is much more than doctrine. 

A loud nation of British foundation damns Britain for everything 

That made such nation possible. Must this last forever. 

This blind damning of the very principles and activities 

Which made civilization possible, and all that goes with it? 

Have we not to the centuries shouted organic equality 

Till Father Time cannot refrain from refraining through treetops 

187 



In his zephyrs and gales the indefeasible parity 

Which we chant of the bianco and negro and Frenchman and Hova ? 

But we have improved more than they? No; not by their standards; 

And the late Mr. Grievely's ex-friend cannot argue them intO' it. 

From their share of the deity-basis comes their evolution, 

Not from your little interpretations about it. 

Yet we stultify ourselves by pretending to conquest, 

To the right of forcible annexation of equals, 

Inventing post-facto reasons of inequality. 

If you find this wrong as a man, is it right as a patriot ? 

Will you deplore it in prayer and implore it in speeches ? 

All this is explained by the razzle of manifest destiny. 

Who can add to the manifest power of apportioned Niagara? 

If destiny be manifest, how thwart it, how aid it? 

Friends it cannot need, and its foes are as flies in molasses. 

It might even smother us all in the syrup of progress ; 

Single or dual progress, unified or allied 

For or against all things criticized in this canto. 

i86. 

Two peerless peeresses these, though each was a peer's wife, 
And whichever peer was chief of the race, he was peerless. 
Pandora was Eve to the Greeks ; each was equally curious. 
Pandora uncovered a pot. Eve divided two apples ; 
And nothing against Eve, I say, that she shared with her husband. 
Posterity puzzles to-day to know why they were curious, 
Those mothers, whichever was mother, of those feazed at Babel, 
Though, each may have had a good reason and none of us learned it 
In the confusion of tongues and the chaos of nations. 
Any fellow may hazard his notion, regardless of calibre. 
For the fall of man Jew and Greek make a woman responsible 
By ways so remote that we may not suspect of collusion. 
Yet no woman in Hebrew or Greek has presented her story ; 
A surprise, because women vindicate without mercy, 
Not so much moved by cause as by fury of mere vindication. 

188 



But Epimetheus and Adam were mighty mean fellows ; 

They told on their girls ; he who tells should be marked for the boycott- 

If the tumble were due tO' a woman, a man should not tell it. 

A tough epoch is this, but I hope not too tough to be gallant. 

Gods and men most respect those who least fear the sequents of evil^ 

Though of course they are sad for the evil that led to the sequence. 

As to Epim, I scorn him ; he ought to have locked the pot-closet. 

A bride just brought home could not fail to inspect the preserve-crocks. 

But that touches me not, since I come from his brother Prometheus. 

Eve also was curious in fruit, but not that stewed or sugared. 

I must praise her for bravery also, with Adam omitted. 

He was equal in wonder with Eve, but below her in courage. 

Notliiiig shames me so much as a man with less nerve than a woman ; 

And ever since Adam shirked out of his little temptation 

I am proud of descent from another branch of the family. 

What I mean is, these myths are much mixt, wheresoever we get them.. 

187. 

The poor ye have always with you, unwilling to emigrate 
In numbers sufficient tO' leave to the clippers of coupons 
The exclusive and inclusive control of the city; 
And when they turn out a full vote they cannot be beaten 
At patriotism save by wilful miscount of the ballots ; 
A summation the men of the coupons have not yet attempted ; 
Not by the whole empire, that is, though they have by the province- 
Nothing else in western life, municipal or national, 
So intensely amused my Manchurian as this sinful miscounting : 
He avowed his shame at his country's inferior invention, 
And remarked how the system would neutralize public opinion 
When the same should become an annoyance to those born to govern;. 
Not for his country, where freedom from public opinion 
Is perfect, but for those less advanced and more boisterous. 
Would you remove an ill that seems chronic in state-life ? 
Then, in adjuration not cheerful, give up a little; 
Make it part, in fact, of your modern-methods curriculum. 

189 



^Vhat the ages revolve to repeat must be the true doctrine 

And insuppressive, since justice cares nothing for plaudits, 

Though no opulent offspring of Demos will read out this canto. 

Each generation sets up its agnostic reformers 

Who dazzle and fret and impress and exhale in their order ; 

Doubly agnostic, these, not only not knowing ; not learning. 

Give me the gnostic who knoweth enough to be faithful, 

The jolly cognostic narrowly sure of his purpose. 

Systems and statutes and panaceas without number 

Have been tried and found short, with self-abnegation avoided. 

Do you purposely shrink from a precept because Christ imposed it? 

•Communism has nothing to do with this doctrine or practice ; 

■'Tis the individual duty of man, if you have it ; 

]\Iake the world easier by putting it into the aggregate. 

I am a lay friend of Christ void of vocal emotion, 

Not a picturesque pulpiteer of the sin of evasion. 

Is mere selfish thrift the chief aim and sole end of ambition? 

We concede you the interest borne by a hundred fortunes. 

Was there no simple luck as substitute for the judgment 

Wherewith you so proudly accumulated the principal ? 

Is the ratio binding or not, as to greatness and duty, 

Of anv greatness, heart, mind, fortune or destiny? 

Or is science to free us from obligation of morals, 

.Science, universal irony of the deity ? 



You can only get rid of the poor by assuming their burdens, 
Or by colonizing them in some Borneo absorbent, 
Some rich giant island awaiting the tickle productive, 
Unless you prefer to preserve them for purposes maudlin ; 
For expressing the rich regret that they need the assistance 
Which makes you so sorry that anybody requires it. 
Be not lavish, nor liberal by spasm, but continuously human. 
Morals and sensitiveness add great parts unto greatness, 
Since they widen the grasp of the mind and sharpen analysis ; 

190 



You cannot so well fill your scope by being blunt as being- tender. 

Intellectual purpose gains largely from ethical sanction ; 

Gains what it could not else find, if you rise to this argument. 

You are not desired to adopt the estate you alleviate, 

But to recognize enough to go 'round as an aggregate. 

The heart should be really touched, not the individual immolated. 

He who shall achieve the abolition of misery 

Alone is the man who shall render useless my sermon. 

We are all overworn with the overborne torrent of lecture 

Which every day tells who should take up what nobody touches. 

Is the better hope the euphem-dream of the optim 

Who cannot see chance with the few and no chance for the many? 

Step iTovv- to the willing front or else step out of hearing, 

Beyond the tone of the moralist or the needy. 

189. 

A great thought seizes the mind as an object of conquest; 

This same mind touches lesser thoughts lightly, vv^ith movement evasive. 

One is delirium symmetric ; the other mere effort. 

Great thoughts pass through the head from the heart, if Emerson know it ; 

If not, he raises an issue psycho-hereditary. 

The mother of Goethe was said to be very freehearted, 

But her heart seemed transformed in the selfish head of her precious. 

His single ambition was personal fame, and he won it. 

Emitting the while some great thoughts from the heart of his mother. 

Thus the woman was great through the son, though the son has the glory ; 

This good woman ; no traviata reformed to be platformed. 

Now, in such cases, Waldo, how do you fix compensation ? 

If each were equally indispensable to the other, 

Why should the mother be damned to the glory of silence 

While the son looms around as poetic toplight of Teutons ? 

If all gifts of great purpose and prize come from sources unsordid, 

Then the head of this son was the means of the heart of his mother, 

Yet she has no fame ; so that great fame is lesser than no fame. 

Her case does not strike me as offering an instance of justice 

191 



As the same is commonly handed down from the courthouse, 

The presiding gavel-master of which is its servant ; 

So I rehabilitate humbly the rights of that woman, 

Which Waldo left very much mixt, like a first-class philosopher ; 

Waldo, pride of his country and equal to any since Plato, 

Who must always be first because he was first west of Asia, 

Though neither so schemed to prevent the Committees of Lexow, and Mazet, 

Which sat further west of the isles of the blest than the rest dreamed. 

190. 

The least disturbed sense of duty is that of self-sacrifice. 
Will you develop it or be sacrificed for evasion ? 
For an agonized mass will not wait on your units forever. 
Blame not the poor for lack of instruction and chances. 
How much of good chance have you volunteered in their favor ? 
How little good chance have you strewn in the paths of our sisters? 
Altruism sounds grand ; yet what is it unless affectation 
Of those who cannot successfully be egotistic ? 
To make your own pile or eliminate that of your neighbor 
There are in a hundred three throws ; are yours all double-sixes ? 
If you find some rare coins in the gutter, that does not prove judgment. 
Nor your fitness to be finance minister of your country. 
Self-sacrifice belongs to you first and then to your brother ; 
The best part of its character vanishes if you share it. 
But your principal friends will prefer to resign you the honors. 
May the next revolution be more than a mere split in flagdom ! 
Ponder the twenty- fourth verse of the nineteenth of Matthew, 
Ye of the standing trust millions, so suave in church circles, 
And paying two guineas a week to those who keep count of them. 
Or would you prefer twenty-sixth, the last clause of last sentence ? 
It seems to leave somewhat ajar the front gates of redemption. 
Even for those condemned by the twenty-fourth to exclusion. 
Wesley, Garibaldi and Manning were above leavmg fortunes. 
God seems sublimest in pauperizing the Plutus 
As, helpless, he goes to dwell dead in his vain mausoleum. 

192 



191. 

No country is without hungry men, women and children ; 

No, not the most prosperous in its best day ; I have seen this. 

Their fault ? Why not yours in not better distributing- chances ? 

Your right to distribute is equal with theirs to look out for them. 

Man must make a career for himself on the heads of his fellows ; 

He shows up inept if he seek out careers for those fellows. 

Yet nobody ever saw Jesus posed up on testudo. 

After all, they are base metal gods of their egotist kindred 

Who possess all the powers of speech and of print to imjx>se them 

Against the absence of power to resent imposition. 

Tlie fact that you cannot be heard puts no truth in my error. 

Combinations are fo-rmed very oft to prevent truth-expression, 

And drumroll hath frequently rolled down its voice on the gallows. 

When the casual citizen speaketh his mind on a corner 

No one careth a dee what he says ; but put the same crudities 

In some dailies which circulate several millions of copies, 

And they form a political scheme for whooping the people. 

Nothing new, true, great, just, but merely the spread of inanity. 

Merely the spread of it, grows into national policy. 

192. 

He that is first in his cause seemeth just, but his neighbor 
Cometh and searcheth him, and thus shaketh his narrative. 
And sometimes he goeth so far as to shiver his timbers. 
Seek-first-the-kingdom-of-God has a value material 
As a phrase of mere discipline ; but be you first to seek it. 
The all-else will not be added till you do your duty ; 
The level can never be one for creator and creature. 
The gift of free will was not to the slave, but the freeman. 
Exhaust all discussion and that is the very last answer. 
Yet you jump over all the back fences in dodging the issue. 
Generations succeed in a monotone of rotation, 
But the principle lives until some generation adopt it. 

193 



Where science socially fails, inspiration supplants it, 

Thus bridging the gap between faith and the failure of science, 

Till the syndicates absorbed inspiration and science, 

Since the hope of the end of our sorrow we relinquish reluctantly. 

AVhom the Lord receiveth he scourgeth, except in republics : 

These having established democracy and theocracy 

In the separate spheres of politics and religion, 

Have ceased to require the discipline due to irregulars 

Who maintain the artificial distinctions of monarchies. 

Yet equality remiains theoretic with demos 

Despite fifty denominations and biped electorate. 

Did your god arrange for the millionaire and the pauper? 

Suppose he did not, will he leave them thus classified ever? 

If he shall I regret his ideal, and yours who adore him. 

There may be high substitutes for theocracy and democracy. 

193- 

When you read about Christ, is your impulse to follow his maxims? 

Or are they too high for your mental equipment and forces ? 

Or is the moral absorbed in the shock of his murder, 

A brutal, inscrutable fact which had to be, like another ? 

Let us unite in a mass to tell why we ignore them. 

Let us sing him a mass penitential, a hymn for forgiveness, 

A musical shout of contrition, a prayer for salvation 

Jn harmonic mass-meeting indignant of citizens pietist ! 

194. 

Instead of devising new duties, be happy with old ones ! 
No avail in fresh projects for gathering into salvation 
The recalcitrants of the overwise, dullard and doubtful. 
They will enter the ring at some sunrise of wisdom, not section, 
Which fifty theocrat democrats preach as the full orb. 
I see for myself wath a concatenation of faculties 
Which may not be correlated in me as in others, 

194 



As they showed not the same correlation in Gladstone and Ingersoll. 

This is neither my merit nor fault, but an ordered condition 

Which applies to all sorts of theologs and agnostics. 

The maker of minds made the fitting faiths when they find them. 

Contradictory systems and liturgies anathematic 

One of another, are not his, when you step from the tenabrse. 

195- 

Doubt not of progress, but hesitate to miscall things. 

Self-evidently selfish the system of ego. 

The competition of egoism ends in destruction, 

Vv'^hetiier you. cut up the aliens or cut up each other. 

Admitting the cheaper alien, you cut your high wages ; 

Keeping him out, you cut into their purchasing genius. 

Keeping alien product out, prices rise on all buyers. 

But highest on those least addicted to dividend-habit. 

Since the man of the dividend-habit puts it in trust-forms. 

It sounds well that wages are high, but the practice is better 

That puts proper proportion into their purchasing genius, 

Whether you work for ten dollars a week or ten guineas. 

The lower they are the more likely they are to continue ; 

Get commodity-price in accord and away from the syndicates, 

Or take shares in mine with all dividends and no wages. 

No citizen is bound to be of one of two classes. 

Is it wise to divide all mankind into millgods and hirelings ? 

Trained mercantile class is a need fundamental in colonies. 

Manufacturer's wageman may not sell goods, but draws salar}^ ; 

Merchant must sell in order to live and pay salaries, 

And, being on the ground, has sounder knowledge of markets. 

From producer direct to consumer is whim of a moment 

That temporarily cuts a class out of good living. 

The world pays for nothing that does not pay in the long run. 

Metamorphosed to moth, society camphorates you promptly. 

I recall public torch of incendiarism ; did it light progress ? 

Hemove the conditions of riot and then call it progress. 

195 



Brotherhood signifies emulation of nations 
In ways not sprinkled with blood of avarice and flagdom. 
In system with self-praise a-topple riot is latent ; 
For the listeners see substance toppling into the premises 
Of those who lecture on substance, not those who listen. 
Was democracy chained to an epoch with shackles immortal ? 
Any democracy, not that of a special instance ? 
If it was, would it be worth while that monarchy follow it? 
What intellectual treat is so sweet as a caucus 
Of statesmen sitting on sugar of maple or canebrake? 
Large enough are the figures to fuddle the top gifts of Euclid. 
The democrat of to-day is as fixt against socialism 
As the autocrat is against anything known as republic. 
May the ghost of the King triumph yet over that of the subject? 
Three centuries have elapsed since the last French King Henry, 
Lover of freedom as then it went 'round, and of popular welfare. 
Three hundred years past that King desired for each peasant 
A pheasant, or chicken, or something equally nourishing 
In the daily ppt-au-feu ; Vv'iiat system provides it ? 
Can all peasant families dine from a platter so pleasant 
As pheasant or chicken daily in any republic ? 
A good democrat surely was ancient King Henry the Hearty 
Who lifted the drift of the term as no later man lifts it ! 
I would modestly seek to evolve the superior nutrition 
Of high-priced republican food over pauper monarchic 
For those of both systems who have only so much tO' buy with. 
And that so-much always too little for those whO' must spend it.. 
This refers to the food-boasts of democratic apostolate. 
Should the socialist get on top, would he be any different ? 
Each is an intellect on his side of the question. 
Remember, and not on all sides of all problems that touch it ; 
At this point comes the giant need without giant to feed it. 
If I could be thorough on all sides as I am on my own side. 
The world should be free of all evils save death and taxation.. 

196 



196. 

Let the foe fuddle you not ; competition of altruism 

Would not stop progress, for the tariff affects to be altru, 

And so is for the egoist who fingers the spoils of it 

Which go to pay interest and dividends and not wages. 

But the cure is worse than the evil as leading to trust-forms 

And combinations against the popular welfare 

Until he who is critic of trusts is guilty of treason, 

So quickly opinion runs off to the big-money channel. 

Man will never know himself until altruism dominate, 

Speaking of him in worldly sense only, not as immortal. 

The experts of premises false and of narrow law-logic 

Who subsidize all the channels of public expression 

Simply baffle the open-door policy leading to paradise, 

The paradise of the planet, not that of the future. 

Pray read this impartially, for I advocate nothing. 

I quote a few nationfuls of the intellects pretentious, 

Feeling fool's confidence in his wiser companions, 

And would rather run from a doctrinaire than a cruiser. 

But altruism would deliver us from pig-product progress. 

The porcine producer and product of egoism hungry. 

Are you egoist to the point of seeing no other ? 

Will you sweep space with Phoebus or continue on in the mule-path ? 

A boom-rally is not prosperity ; you are mistaken ; 

It has to take care of its own reaction, and does not. 

The sardonic part of the boom is the shirk of the sequence. 

When you balance the two, note your preference for steady conditions. 

Put science at work on proportioning the machinery 

Which shall neither glut nor starve men nor markets ; at present 

All is chaos therein, with chance to the speculator onl)^ 

Wagemen have not the money for taking advantage of chaos. 

Is freedom a grope, or a hope, or is it an order? 

It seems not to know how to cut itself loose from vicissitude. 

Which maketh more victims than sin, in or out of republics. 

'Tis the euphemism of the slave for imagined possession, 

197 



Perhaps ; but its meaning certainly ought to be clearer 

Wheresoever people deem they live under its influence 

As theocrats, democrats, socialists or agnostics. 

Some men will approve what I write because you dislike it, 

And you will condemn it because you belong not among them. 

Thus you see if you placate the world you must injure some feelings. 

No joke reaches far enough to excite every laughter. 

I have my pet notions, like you, of republics and freedom. 

And would give half the globe could I live under President Plato. 

197 

But if you cannot agree on a golden-rule system 

And continue to build for your brother 'twixt altru and ego. 

You are merely the architect of the nihilist shambles. 

We are glib in the theory of reciprocal owings, 

Yet Pourceaugnac is our model as Moliere defined him. 

No ism can be large enough in law or in science, 

No ist can be Cassar enough in any dominion 

To establish the happy medium, the fortunate circle 

Leaving nothing to be desired, desi^ring that no one get left there. 

To be autocrat of all happiness on one level. 

There is plenty of room at the top, said my puissant Dan Webster. 

He illumined the motto by seizing and holding the summit. 

But I answer the great Mr. Webster, the middle needs more of it. 

Top and bottom have plenty of space, but the middle is crowded,. 

The sensitive section of hard fight and moderate ambition, 

Without which both top and bottom would go to the bottom. 

198. 

Reform must comie in what is miscalled education. 
In delaying it evolution seems culpable plainly. 
Evolution, whose mission is to cast out the defective 
By natural elimination, not buccaneer stratagems. 
Open a school to teach the correct diagnosis 

198 



Of the true bent of the child and bring it up from that basis. 

Be not discouraged by keener psychologic exactions. 

Respect the demand for increased physiological knowledge. 

Again : to discover the bent of the child is the duty, 

And I wish I could be the Columbus of such situation. 

This proposition is vital, including all life-rights. 

Determine early the drift of the gift ; that effected, 

The hope of the race is transferred from fresh fields of new bondage, 

From the repetition of errors and crimes on new acres 

To the crescent career where success is as sure as the moon-growth ; 

To the outlined career where from childhood mistake cannot enter. 

Be plain with me as you choose when I tell you flatly 

You may iio longer dump on the youthful intelligence 

An university full of the rot of all ages 

And turn it out on the world with a placard of education. 

The adaptation of mind to the thought it externates 

Is that which bestows on the thought its value presumptive. 

Great man with one theme, he mar be a farceur with another, 

And supreme in one sphere, yet be wholly unable to change it. 

To beg questions, dodge issues, and spread false doctrine, make, booklets 

But no true letters, no matter the yarns nor the years of delusion ; 

My booklet is doing good now in affirming this doctrine. 

Endow a college built on the rock of emancipation. 

Arrange a curriculum to begin by excluding the present. 

But then the old thing is up tO' requirement, says Andy. 

It is if his millions may limit the human advancement, 

And if no one else may aspire because he is happy. 

199. 

Confound not dispute on points technic with movements of principle. 
True education would multiply calls for its forces 
And there would more to be done than of people to do it. 
That is the active meaning of real instruction. 
And the golden age would establish of Tasso and Thomson. 
Bring each a great heart and not a great head to the duty ; 

199 



As the rule this proposition is viewed vice versa. 
Among social evils what think you of overproduction ? 
Do you ever think about it at all, Panaceist ? 
Scarcity wins you high wages, but glut does not feed you. 
And you never are glutted with wages for glutted conditions. 
A commercial, order for ten brings supplies for a hundred, 
Yet you wonder at shut-downs, strikes, and no wages, low prices. 
Can capital carry stock unproductive forever 
To satisfy those who must live by their earnings diurnal 
While those earners a.re paid to produce ten times what is wanted ? 
These questions are always absorbing, though no one absorbs them 
In the sense of digesting them for an answer that settles. 
Surely inventors are fathers of neutralized benefits ! 
Is your genius so poor it can only glut markets, stop wages? 
Continued reaction and rally leave industry a sarcasm 
On the very serious fellows who' can live only by it. 
I do not believe any god is in any such system, 
But that the purpose of God in free will is defeated 
By hypocritic misuse of free will in a grab-game 
Where chance puts that fellow on top who can feed himself longest. 
Who can feed himself up to starve other men into submission ; 
For, pluck and endurance being equal, the fed man is winner. 
This is not economic debate, but the taffy of fireside. 
If college go higher and moral and social tone lower 
In the same decade, what do you think of the colleges ? 
Or which of the three shall keep up the one or two other? 
Accept or reject on the facts, and not as an optimist, 
Nor as inimical friend, as Mephisto to Faustus. 
Shall social evils ever be righted by morals, 
By the active sentiment of propinquitous duty, 
Not by Pecksniff statutes which coldly add pain to misfortune? 
To abolish privilege, remember, is not to transfer it 
From a higher caste to a lower caste and more numerous. 
In seeking to substitute right for the rights of the favored 
Let us not be content with mere change in the lodgement of privilege. 
Death of the isms will at last bring the level of fortune ; 

200 



Populism, communism, socialism, spiritism as a traffic. 

Whatsoever pretends to a legislative crank's paradise. 

Must be put to death as th^e bummer-means of high purpose. 

Law secular cannot be sentient as ethical dutv. 

Neither practise the obligations of personal morals. 

Democracy is well organized on its level. 

And has many years to run thereon in its fixity ; 

But this system, up to date, gives no lofty assurance. 

It forgets its defects and remembers those of the enemy 

With a shout big enough to deafen all other systems, 

And sloughing the skin but not the traits of its fathers. 

If or .the democrat is merely a fugitive feudalist, 

A feudalist saturated at base of the strata, 

Transferred to new sphere, and putting old facts in new system. 

Generations will refine him, of course ; but so will they the others. 

They may crowd his luck, too, by overcrowding his paradise. 

But I am his friend, and I recognize his importance 

As having achieved things which nobody else has attempted, 

And which nearly all others derided as not being attainable. 

And I thank him for an original character in letters ; 

Not an architect he so much as a smasher of shackles, 

And more needed as such than a Phidias among ooets ; 

For he broke the enfeebling tinkle-tinkle of language 

^Misapplied to poetic thought and repelling strong readers : 

Walt Whitman, of course ; I name him to do myself honor. 

For none gone through death into fame hath less need of fine phrases. 



200. 

Ye who dislike this, 'beseech you forego your displeasure, 

For lo I convict you out of the ink of your printmen 

In the columns not devoted to jingo and syndicate. 

But to crowner's quest law on contractors and commissariat. 

In the Crimean war the British inefficiency 

As tO' Quartermaster and Commissary was effulgent, 

201 



And the people flew into a rage and upset a symposium, 
Turned a Cabinet out and shook hands with one another warmly, 
Taking great moral pride in both the achievement and anger, 
While the soldiers were frozen and starved. In the war about Cuba 
The States surpassed Britain in every sort of deficiency. 
Wherein Britain had excelled, and got angry and boasted 
Of their popular virtue while their soldiers were roasted and starving. 
A soldier is always hungry enough to eat anything. 
And contractor and commissary bet on this appetite, 
One banking at end of camipaign on the way he appeased it. 
Popular self-righteousness, not official efficiency, 
Is a dominant trait in the self-satisfaction political 
Which the two nations single-tongued call political freedom. 
By virtue of these vices neither my States nor my Britain 
Is so strong as either believes, nor as each of them should be. 
To the German War Department such raving is farcical, 
While such virtue provokes contempt alone, as it should do. 
Why not make your Quartermaster and your Commissary 
In the first instance efficient, O States and O Britain, 
Thus giving the world no occasion to sneer, nor yourselves to be angry ^ 
Nor to stand on their heads delinquents, nor to organize inquests? 
Be not too sharp to be oculist to your brother ; 
He may see a mote neutralizing the edge of your lancet. 
My postulate is that true patriotism eliminates errors 
Instead of embalming in sanctity those which deform you 
With the beef embalmed which desanctifies heroes who eat it. 
Can that which is wrong in one man be right in ten millions ? 
Or does it not monstrously multiply one by ten millions? 
My mission is that of requesting a few explanations 
Of sad suppressed verities ere I partake of the taffy. 
Too serene am I to be captious, too old to be spiteful. 
It is great to be free from the errors that go with the youthful ! 
It is almost worth while to be very old for this privilege. 
But no matter how much I anticipate in this funscreed. 
Speak your little piece of critique, whether reading or skipping. 
I suggest no new scheme, but recall indefeasible ethics, 

202 



That is, if indefeasible really mean something ; 

And if we may not annul them, suppose we apply themi. 

201. 

A righteous system assureth success to each member, 

The development of all faculties, moral and other ; 

The just award, not too much nor too little for any one. 

We may not attain it ? Not less 'tis a pleasant reflection, 

Recalling the golden age of Torquato's Aminta, 

Or New Zealand equality against corporation-democracy. 

Many misfits nature makes, yet they seem to fit so'mewhere. 

Yet not nature makes them, but rather our systems of misfit. 

If a famine prevail on the hill there is corn in the valley, 

And the average will always be full for a just distribution. 

But you must adopt a just system whereby tO' distribute. 

Not philanthropy is needed so much as no need of it. 

Mankind has accepted no system from Plato to Spencer 

As workable, but has little by little adopted 

Some of all for a time, and then let it drift into limbo. 

Successive atmospheres of speculative glory 

Have oxygenated the mind as from loftier intelligence. 

But the spirits thus vivified have rejected the systems 

For lack of concretion : this does not condemn the philosophies 

Nor the rejectors; but as the prevailing condition 

Common human happiness has not been established. 

I am simply noting a fact, and leave you to explain it. 

Or ten thousand colleges radiant with all sorts of learning. 

202. 

Therein do we see the just purpose of education, 
And mankind will never be tranquil until they achieve it, 
A knowledge other than that which increaseth our sorrow. 
Unrest never dies as the genius of right unattained yet ; 
Self-assertive equally with autocrats and democrats forever. 

203 



Despair not, since many the years were that waited atonement. 

New learning yet shall arise from a rational basis, 

The Phcenix of Reason late burned in the temple of folly 

Whereto it had dangerously strayed for the wisdom of trifles ; 

In a world surprised at the joke of its credences previous. 

In a world of wilful and willing delusion and groping. 

There is brewing an essence of sense on this theme, for I scent it ; 

There is planted the seed of a flower which shall shed new elixir ; 

Sweet as a bud with indefinite power of expansion, 

A flos with the possible dross of its perfume exhausted. 

How long time do you need to confess you have learned to go wrongly 

With the power and the age of your schools and their million alumni ? 

Education is narrow misnomer outside this conception, 

Tliis eagle-idea in the air bound yet to perch somewhere. 

203. 

Are these things so far ? Like the past, there is lure in the future, 

And the lure either speaks for itself or its fineness escapes you. 

Proximity palls ; even home seems more concrete by absence 

In the glow which imagination flings 'round its pleasures. 

I aim enchanted with distance, and so with the garden 

Of Aristotle ; for if I had walked with that teacher 

His roses and rhetoric and pace might have mixt me v/ith nearness, 

As they addled the greater son of the great Macedonian. 

But at two thousand miles and two thousand years in the distance 

His expositions al fresco seem very refreshing ; 

Seem stump speeches by classical chopper in forest poetic. 

Two hundred decades from this I should like to applaud them 

Renewed in some equal successor on themes then important. 

If any race shall produce such : if not, I shall wander, 

A peripatetic spirit, back to his banquets, 

204, 

A church-member told me that caste is the ally of morals. 
He is very rich now : I recall him quite poor with six children. 

204 



He was socialist then ; leaned to dynamitic adjustment, 

As he worked hard and worried over those six children's future. 

I told him his six were no better nor worse than another's six, 

And that dynamite of itself was a worry sufficient 

Even to a man wholly free of parental solicitude. 

He confessed the explosive point, rejecting the altruistic. 

An important lesson is here : either his church or his fortune 

Had taught him error ; yet he clearly agreed with his fortune, 

And not with the apostles. If caste be the ally of morals, 

In my next comedy I must give it so^me cantos 

Of decalogical value, to supplement Moses, 

As from wealthy vestryman to the doctrine of Nebo, 

Or Olivet ; such men not then being invented. 



205. 

Why was war necessary for feeding the starving 
When you were already feeding the starving without it? 
It is good to take up these topics in phases and sections. 
The ages, you know, will not fail to hold fast to your motive. 
They could not eat twice as much war-fed as peace-fed, poor rebels ! 
And while you prepared tO' war-feed them, they died of no-feeding. 
Your men of great dailies and platforms of course have explained us 
Why war-philanthropy excels that of peace ; why the beneficiaries 
Of the one becamie the victims of the other. It makes you no difference 
That your paradox staggers the future and killed the unfortunates 
Whom the prior half of your new wonder-scheme was preserving. 
The comment, if any, is that there must be no comment. 
The unsaved could not reproach you the change in food-strategy 
Which killed the many to save the few, and plant freedom 
Among the survivors, if any, of half-savage rebels. 
But I never knew public act yet that could escape history. 
Let the critic promptly chant himself into a lullaby 
Till history appear with the pen and the lancet of motive 
And the antecedent record that made all this possible. 

205 



206 

If you teach your youth to love theirs without hating my country, 

I will teach ours that you by example surpass us. 

We live in a world where a nation is either a household 

Entitled to full reciprocity of good neighbor, 

Or is one of a series of lajrs of inimical hippodrome. 

It is not your cause, but the manner in which you present it. 

Or you may see fit to present it without any manners. 

Government better than people cannot subsist with a people 

When free, because liberty sets them free to destroy it 

Voluntarily or by incidence, as beyond them. 

Assimilation benevolent means the proconsul, 

Means some big Pontius Pilate set up over some Aguinaldo 

In all instances ; some political carpet-bagger 

Who lets circumstance drift to the cross, and then goes into mourning 

For what he did not prevent ; but I am not weeping. 

Nations occasionally settle their issues by merit. 

Remember the arbitrational issue of Behring. 

It would double the crime of a war to defy that example. 

Next time let the comic editors handle such question ; 

They are never rich, and could get the bill settled much quicker, 

While nations are always rich, and put off the poor sailors. 

207. 

After all, aristo's are best ; but how do you make them ? 
Capsize not your ink in a rage, but think out the Greek meaning ; 
Prejudiced misuse of derivative should not mislead you. 
There is always plenty of influence for him who can wield it. 
Sometimes circumstance forces the influence, as with Lincoln. 
Again, influence forces the circumstance, as with Boney. 
But the latter I haste to refuse to accept as aristo, 
Kakos anthropos, or the bad big boy, of the vain folk. 
The political development of the French people 
Was less than it was with Louis Quatorze when it took him. 

205 



But ht me defend nothing- ill in fun, favor or satire. 
Caste, in hard Hnes without morals, increaseth hypocrisy. 
Thus augmenting a sin which, with others, it aims at concealing. 

208. 

Idealogue of an age wholly unscientific. 

You say, is he who^ proposes the rule of the moral 

In a world taught to science, not morals, to look for solutions. 

And to corporate capital for absorbing all management. 

I may assent ; if I do, not Christian is civilization. 

il quarrel with nothing, not seeing the value of dogma, 
Having seen one dogma ruin another so often. 
But I call for the social application of science 

tThat shall begin the far end which the golden rule looks to. 
And begin it in manner to follov/ it out seriatim. 
Not flatter itself that it lives not with Henry Plantagenet. 

■Until science shall equalize upward the fate of the victims 

; Of fate, I shall cling tO' the ancient conception of morals, 
Which is not content tO' see science collapse like a bubble 
When calkd to yield more than a chance to the minions of fortune. 
Chance in that sense is just, since it carries no other pretension. 
But science, as meaning the height and the sum of all knowledge, 

[Is a hypocrite if it cannot rise above chances. 



209. 

You acknowledge wrongs ; why not set yourself to destroy them, 
Not alone, but by asking your neighbors to follow the movement ? 
Give you time ? You have had every reign since the days of King Egbert, 
1 And in his age the golden rule had come down from Confucius. 
[Are civilty and Christianism forces antagonistic, 
One too altruistic for selfish appreciation. 
Floating side by side in the irony of Mephisto? 
Do not mistake my agnostic ; he is not an infidel ; 
He wishes to know, and asks questions ; how would he learn else? 

207 



2IO. 

The moral law is occult ; it is not understood yet ; 

And if you shout dogma every time it be preached to you, 

There will soon be no preachers nor teachers nor pupils abiding. 

Nineteen centuries hath Christ been proclaimed, and Moses past thirty. 

But where the practicians of doctrine of Pisgah or Olivet ? 

What people puts such doctrine into its patriotism? 

Where the devotees who obey in ten cases Thou Shalt Not ? 

They prefer to decline in ten cases the grammar of ethics. 

None so lay out the moral law that from choice we obey it. 

We would if we could without sacrifice ; that confounds us. 

Do you recall those fine men of the order Bostonian, 

Favorite seers of the proud Nineteenth Century, the Second Quarter^ 

Those New Lights in Letters, the Children of Capital Letters, 

Who killed war dead by their institutions superior. 

By the forum-din of the virtues, the reason-shot of the monthlies ? 

Limners of figures Utopian in deserts of hopefuls, 

Saharas of beauty whose flaw was the lack of the possible, 

Yet whose services are tO' their country of merit imiUiortal ; 

They proved the goal unattainable of the average. 

And that demigods may be followed by filibusteros. 

The old Vv'hite church on some corner beside Boston Com.mon, 

Park Street Temple the natives call it, I ween, spread no doctrine 

Self-sufficient for holding the public mind to home-issues. 

Their failure to prove anything but their own isolation 

Cuts me, taught to deem them the later and higher apostles. 

Those dear dead prophets who knew it all and knew nothing, 

Whose unmenaced land shrieks more war than all other nations. 

Those optimists teach us a double doubt of their species 

Whose honest intent is the laudanum-lull of delirium. 

The bishop is chairman of eccelesiastic convention 

That still fails to persuade us to love like ourselves the next-door folk. 

Nothing so sad as the failure of Christ with the laymen, 

The crucified Chief of the Altruists hopeless as model. 

208 



211. 

Have you ever reflected how greatness has gathered some items ? 

Com© into the temple of fame and salute some immortals, 

A few chiefs ; they may widen your mind and develop your feelings. 

Blind Homer's receipts from his genius left him a beggar. 

The Iliad of Troy was wrought out in an Iliad of Sorrow ; 

He burdened the ages with fame and then starved for his place here. 

Proud blind regicide Milton, another who fared scarcely better. 

Saints might sicken at thought of the dooms of Cervantes and Dante, 

Or faint at the chains and the glory and grief of Columbus. 

That is Count Ugolino of Envy, a warning imperishable 

or a capital sin that carries punition undying. 

Wouldst thou gnaw forever thine enemy's head to be niched here ? 

There is a thorn-crowned Redeemer; Mahomet is aureoled. 

His faithful ascending tower-high over Hebrews and Romans. 

The immortals stun me already ; come out of the temple 

Where the incense stifles : I wonder our nature can breathe such. 

If the carnifex be our Apollo of inspiration, 

May letters be burned and the vacuum of knowledge be wisdom. 

Any mastery is scholarship ; let any find a new destiny ! 

Sufferance may not be measured by that which is merely apparent. 

Organic quality explains it as nearly as may be. 

Tear the crown from the tiger that reigns over human superiors ! 

The experience wrenched from such suffering should not be needed. 

All is wrong where the finest are martyrs to save the coarse victims. 

An infernal, not a celestial race would require this. 

Deride not the change of heart theory ; 'tis needed supremely. 

By whatever faith you accomplish the change, make it certain. 

Strong in their bailiwicks are the ignorant and the rebel, 

But a god in some form is the final resource of the tortured. 

If they need not the god they have not been sufficiently tortured. 

Is this agony a myth because you fail to feel it? 

The forum incites us, the pulpit teaches subjection. 

Individualism without form raves from contrary sources, 

Interested only in making the ego-impression. 

209 



One tickles our fancy, the other inflames our resentment, 
With the listeners too dull to perceive the two tricks of the shouters. 
We are ground as in mills of the gods between hope and reaction. 
And our chronic dream is the golden fleece of a substitute. 
Are we to build the new argo to seek the new cargo? 

212. 

We need a fresh race of apostles sacred and secular, 

Contemporaries being cut on the syndicate pattern. 

Quit preaching obedience and privilege in forms mediaeval. 

Else will you anger the men strained by pain till they tell you 

The whole of the capital seven have ceased to be sinful. 

Your doctrine excites necessarily lasting resistance 

While it inculcates content with conditions half-human, 

And the field-preach perennial of demos does not alleviate them. 

Each pulpiteer his own Christ works a segregate influence. 

Try to lessen the tension that runs through the generations. 

In the selfish evangel the doctrinaire followed the robber. 

The industrial moth with the time to frame laws and troll speeches. 

He simply continues to do it for those who support him, 

But the popular mind finds him every day harder to suffer. 

213. 

Are these topics deep and dry? They are bang up and ethical. 

'Tis the fashion to-day to pretend that ethics are popular. 

I am doing my little best to help on the delusion. 

Ethics make a good fad, but short life is the essence of fashion. 

La Divima Commedia di Dante non sempre e comica ; 

But this world is so serious that all things non-tragic are comic, 

And he found non-tragic incidents enough for his title. 

Or he may have desired to bequeath an ironic conundrum. 

214. 

Better adrift from the god of defeat and his doctrines 
Than moored to the duty of mumbling his precepts exhausted. 

210 



The hell of content in v/hich the vast mass of our fellows 

Are damned to admire the children of snugly housed fortune 

Whose merit was luck, and by generations of roll-call, 

Needs religious fervor as part of the force contemplative. 

The apostolate of the ease of the pewholder steady 

Merely maddens the throng without seats to a worse pitch of fury. 

Preach something else or your creed will be curst as a sarcasm. 

Rather Robin Hood than Archbishop of Modern Millions. 

Canst thou justify to thyself, even by mere human reasoning. 

The pursuit, at the cost of pursuits, of a fetich elusive, 

Thou son born to death who art god of the fortune that shirks thee, 

Ever shrinking ahead of thy touch or disdaining to follow ? 

The self-burning mind has succeeded the fagot and dagger 

Till for freedom the soul has invented annihilation. 

Last resource of aspiration at ashes of incense, 

Of the lover of Hope whom she starved to emaciation. 

Out of the deeps do I cry of the years that are full of it, 

O God put the race in advance of the progress requiring it ! 

A conception of fire that has withered the heart of the prophet 

Is too precious by far for the fiends v.^ho dare benefit by it. 

Indifferent that others writhe so that they escape trouble. 

One special providence would render superfluous all praying ; 

But if in celestial economy that be a fiction. 

Beware of the logic of natural law to effect it ! 

By that law the superiors shall not always bleed for enlightening. 

They will rather plunge to repose in immortal extinction, 

Weary at last of their radiance which failed to illume you. 

O ingrates open your ears to the trumpet sorrow 

Louder now than when blown to an air not yet sound-crammed, not weary 

Of celebrant brass and of science and sermon and hymnal. 

Lest that trump proclaim punishment worse than the death of the firstborn 

On the children of those who were willfully deaf to its clamor ! 

215- 

You, loiterer, man of the world, not an ist of envy nor ruin, 
Tou are not really earnest on evils in state-life ? 

211 



Then drop the pretension of interest that makes you a hypocrite. 

Affront not the gods of revenge with your self-contradiction. 

When cornered on manifest wrongs, answer not with conundrums. 

Cease advocating the science distinguished by nihil 

When your forces are all arrayed against those of the nihilist, 

Who cannot be either cajoled or dragooned to your premises 

That penal servitude is the heritage of just living 

For those who may not at all times throw all double sixes. 

The unhearted schemes symmetrized on the lines of fat purses 

Cannot keep unmaterialized ever the spectre of Gresham. 

The man of thin purse cannot fill out the lines of the fat one. 

A rights-o'-mam soup or ragoiit a la breezy stump speaker 

Comes an easy offer for dinner-full partisan preachers, 

But providtes not the solids for him who absorbed its wind-beauty. 



216. 



In the Church, im the Commons, the Lords, in the Navy and Army 
The purpose still stays in the air, but the function is perfect ; 
So perfect that purpose, I deem, is mistaken for function. 
My object would be to combine consummation with function. 
Sermons, speeches, bands, drill, evolutions of ships and battalions, 
My Lord Marquis, are numerous and brilliant ; but all end in function. 
Its merits are shining enough to give me the razzle, 
But as exhibition of purpose, function is funny ; 
The ironic act in the Comedy of Olympus, 
The predilect series of scenes in the laughter that dies not. 
I repeat, let us try to combine consummation with function ; 
For our friend that opaquely lights us or slights us will rise yet 
To radiate in Exeter Hall our regret at its tribesmen. 
Our griefs for the chiefs who fail not of the praise of our rivals 
Who would knock out the Britons as tyrants to set up the Fenii ; 
A grotesque anthropologist to succeed a state-builder ; 
The summation of everything comic and everything tragic. 

212 



217. 

Phrenic distension amuses your optimist otium, 

But one scheme remains still untried ; it is that of self-sacrifice. 

This you and I have discussed till all three are exhausted. 

Moral law is like death in one aspect ; we cannot escape it 

In the ultimate, though we may take great fun in the meanwhile. 

But if you seek themes pietistic for endless discussion 

Instead of desiring solution of problems transcendent, 

Interpret a moral law when you cannot deny it. 

Conscience is willing to sail to the windward of sacrifice. 

The richest man in the church may best pilot the parson. 

Every man with some Christ in his soul is the victim of some one 

Who has less ; perhaps God arranged this and kept his own secret ; 

Ordained it as measure for rendering some moral life possible. 

Assuming both ignorance and motive, all Korans are high comedy ; 

No exception, all things are high in proportion to purpose. 

Go forth and preach as your prophet commands, and meet others 

Who preach as their prophets command ; and among the religions 

If extermination ensue, let the dead thank their saviours. 

218. 

Think deep on the passion prolonged of the sons of privation 
Who transmit the vain hopes of their lives throughout vain generations. 
Whether you take the fate kindly or kick like your fathers. 
In the end you must lay on the altar of duty your tribute ; 
This is not anarchistic, but a waft from the region of morals ; 
Or the long disinherited heirs will put you in their places. 
Spare sorrow by heeding what I find but sorrow in telling; 
For otherwise when the mass shall be truly enlightened. 
Shall have laughed itself free of Korans and agnostic no^prophets 
And be up in the upness of obligation reciprocal, 
The professors of syndicate must cease their resistance, 
Must quit bribing caucus and court, legislation and firstman. 
Or the angel forlorn will once more spread the wings of his fury, 

213 



Without monition repeating the night of Sennacherib 

On many a field, and a Noyade by many a river ; 

For the ages are wrathful against them for egoist pretexts, 

These demons of fortune misused, the political Pluti. 

No chance to repent with your hand red against the successful. 

Not with us means against us, and woe is the portion. 

219. 

For order and progress legitimate nothing is substitute, 

And therefore I could not be advocate of spoliation, 

For I have looked close upon war and scenes harder than battle^ 

With experiences saturate till I wish I could cast them, 

Because more than sufficient annuls where sufficient is useful, 

And I wish all the world in its own way happy forever. 

Individual conception justified; larger enjoyment! 

220. 

Nothing so strong as revolt 'gainst millenial suppression. 
Remember that, Boanerges of subjugation 
Preaching the ox-yoke doctrine, not that of light burden. 
Vesuvian millenium of political scoriae 
Will make a Pompeii of any forefathers' system. 
Leaving you glad to run stark from the wreck of your temples. 
The bruised gods and crumbled fanes of all you have worshipped. 
France exploded on less than two hundred years of suppression 
Because six generations of nobles were serious and funless, 
For your Frenchman, when not bent on pleasure, is graver than puritan. 
Next time France will burst with more science as well as more glory. 
But I trust in the comic editors to soften the future. 
As the faithful provokers of inappeasable laughter 
Which not always stops to distinguish the fun from the joker, 
And as being in duty bound to provide it new objects, 
They might set up the hardships of nations as popular fun-themes 
And jovially shake even Russia into disarmament. 

214 



Vv'^e know not what gods nor editors may do till we try them, 

Neither what the comic States may do in Far Orient 

For a private door of their own to the theatre in China 

When the curtain there drop on the open-door farce played by Britain. 

Prices vary, or tariffs ; one-priced door would be too democratic. 

221. 

Colonel Yell of Yellville is of many States ; and much Union 

In his personality centres, as in that of Colonel Rye of Ryeville, 

And of Colonel Bourbon of Blue Grass ; this last best remembered 

By me ; and of all whom enough tales to found a republic 

Of jokes, and to run it a hundred years, are still current. 

Could these Colonels have had their way, late political problems 

Had been debated to death not on field, but in tavern, 

And our friend had been spared much expense and some bloodshed and 

scandal. 
And I hope that if ever the talkinghouse for disruption 
Be mooted in Britain again, that these three foreign Colonels, 
Lawyers likewise, and deep in confusion of constitutions. 
And thus obfuscaciously qualified for the office, 
Will be invited by joint resolution of Parliament, 
Or humble address to the throne, to come and be counsel 
For us in the circumstance, lucus a non lucendo, 
Et non sequitur, et non importandum, so long as the merits 
Of Rye and of Bourbon distillate shall be recognized 
As fitting preventative of heptarchical movement. 

222. 

The greatest leader is merely the longest-lived vogue-master. 
Alexander died drunk ; yours will die of another delirium. 
Substitute another vogue, and you spoil his vocation. 
"The worst sort of good man" left his fame in a vacuum of empire. 
This is pure politics, and is justified to keep principle 
Away from the touch of the cranks, who cut it to pieces. 

215 



The cranks' politics, of course, is not to permit this. 

But if your tactics last long enough to expose them. 

The public finally swings to your side with effusion. 

And an avalanche of ballots promptly conceals them 

At the next election. Aged stagers are much the more dangerous, 

Those whose minds confound g'odliness with the needs of the people 

To live in a manner appreciative of godliness ; 

Tliose whom fortune and character raise above popular sympathy, 

Bad in nothing, narrowly active, and thoro'ly puritan. 

The saint sainted by lack of temptation is beyond all exception 

The worst British subject in public life; have you measured him? 

223. 

Cheer the day of liberty from buffoons of the forum ! 
That is, unless they pose there to amuse, not reform you, 
Though sometimes reform is among the most comic of projects. 
As I said, 'tis in freeing the mind; but be pleasant about it, 
Since sad is your plight if you need a professing reformer. 
But in that wondrous time about which I seek to be ominous 
Numbers and arms will not be with the uniformed hirelings. 
But manifold private shot will magnify Lexington, 
The guerrilleros will overwhelm in the bushwhack. 
The whackers being the population embattled, 
And shoot into disappearance those who oppose them, 
The mercenaries loyal to privilege and servitude, 
As fought the colonial braves against those in the open. 
Those farmers in ambuscade, brave and famous forever. 
Against those fools enough to expose themselves in the open, 
Farmers sensibly sure to pick off with the least self-exposure ; 
A principle which in campaigns I carefully practised. 
But referring back to the manifold private shooting, 
A decade of soldiers will be no stronger against it 
Than a mortar and pestle as fortress in staying a pestilence. 
He who dies armed for an error transforms not its character. 
His serenade, had he lived, might have been the rogue's quickstep. 

5ifi 



Respect, if you find it, his pluck, while rejecting his notion. 
My daily prayer is that we see it in time to avert it. 
And that Britain achieve by monarchical evolution 
Instead of the turbulence so distasteful to courtiers. 
Be not alarmed by anything in this section; 
'Tis but a stump canto on fighting and fooling and lying. 
Both sides make it interesting for each, and sales larger. 

224. 

Give us a day of repose on Great Britain as grabber! 

Your homesteads are built on the land that she grabbed from first owners 

And on what you have added by fitting your boots to her foot-tracks 

In a robber-wodd, though we find this so hard of confession. 

You have never repudiated the title nor legacy, 

Nor have the Fenii dwelling with you in vast numbers 

Whose peculiar claims set them apart from all other dwellers, 

And who are especially tender as to national title. 

If the red man put on our cheek the red iron, the Mexican 

May put it on yours and be justified, unless assumption 

Of superiority constitute morals Mosaic 

And sanctify force and anthropological plunder. 

I am merely reviewing old themes ; not affirming opinion. 

225. 

When mankind shall have learned their success is due to conditions, 
To top-soil, deep loam, continentally spacious conditions. 
Not to theory nor statist, the spell of new systems will vanish, 
And the god who regrets the gift of free will may forgive us 
And lead us not into temptation to imitate something 
Which the founders themselves in spite of themselves are outgrowing. 
It is hard to surpass by a handspring the system of ages. 
Nor can any foresee what the ages may do with the handspring. 
Try not to prevent peoples founding the systems they wish for. 
Regeneration gratuitous may not be justified 

217 



By the alien conditions whereon you may try to impose it ; 
And by this you may even cease to be popular champion. 
Regeneration involves ethnological problems 

Which cut-and-dried freedom solves not, and in which it may tyrannize- 
No system yet founded absolved the future from thinking 
As occasion might require of conditions presented 
Such as the founded system could not provide for. 
Thus without intention freedom may run into despotism 
Tjy the mere fact of lapsing from the intention original. 
But liberty was made not for thinkers but workers, you shout at me. 
Very well ; I think you are likely to worK yourself out of it. 
Much thought was bestowed on it ere your first chance to fool with it. 
I did not think alongside those who thought it out for you, 
But am old enough tO' remember some, and their mind-work. 
Their intellectual activity and moral integrity 
Find my easy reverence without regard to the ultimate. 
T care nothing for monarchy simply because it is British. 
I have lived with and studied all forms and deduced me a preference. 
And have grown old with intent to be wholly impartial. 
I neither reciprocate nor retaliate the envy 
Which the honest Longfellow wrote is the vice of republics. 
Which never accept a great man till they cannot deny him, 
And then cling to him after he lapses from great man to demon. 
Tammany would wreck British moral sense, or be wrecked by it. 
Ye who have not made an ethical study of Tammany 
Know not that a fevv^ thousand alien political spoilsmen, 
Voting solidly for the purpose, wrecked a national election 
Which, but for their votes, would have meant everything that it did net. 
To be free of Tammany monarchy I can stand much other, 
More especially since the apocalypse of Moss-Mazet. 

226. 

The new woman may not be superior by reason of newness, 
Or she may ; it all depends on the sort of the newness. 
But patriotism is in any case part of her outfit. 

218 



Why not double for her the vote universal already? 

And if woman be better than man, then for reasons political 

And ethical, I suggest that man be disfranchised, 

Since man besmears duty by just so much as she cleanses 

In the equal view of true student and true politician. 

But she seeks with the male to apportion the masculine duties 

Without deigning to ask man to bear any part of her burdens 

And without letting go of her grip in continuing the species. 

If this last how long will she last? And what genus of species 

Will she reproduce ? Does this show that our god has grown tired of us. 

And has set us in irony on to extirpate the stirpes? 



227. 

For no cause grow seedy of morals nor spiteful of temper. 
Nothing else lets you down quite so quickly and far in your friendships 
Whosoever demarked right and wrong demarked them forever. 
We may overstep and step back of the line, but not cut it, 
And our duty is simple and pressing to learn more about it 
Than the seesaw of sinning and praying the Lord to forgive us. 
If you be of a turn peculiarly pietistic. 

And your son in the folly of youth should make light of policemen. 
Say, those heavy policemen imported for bulk at Bulk City, 
Or if he combine the foibles of avarice and finance, 
Netting misdeal or misdeed instead of a fortune. 
And receive as rev/ard long vacation at Dartmoor or Sing Sing, 
Do not disown him nor blame him, but think of the cause of it. 
His inheritance was your vices instead of your piety, 
And they were enough to stock up a new Satan, if wanted. 
What you are is the thing you transmit, not what you would like to be. 
Unless you can safely bet on a fluke of the spirit. 
Do not trouble a book that takes other views of this subject. 
By imagination you cannot get rid of heredity, 
Since imagination itself is part of heredity, 
Although liable to the general freaks of transmission^ 

219 



Think of that when you impiously deem that your god has been hard with 

you. 
And if, rather than vile, you be good, apply the same reasoning. 
Either way the result will justify you and the reasoning. 
He had ethnically missed that which, could we always inherit it, 
Would have made our world long ago the abode of the sanctified. 
Had his dower been only your virtues, it might have been other. 
He might not have dallied with avarice, policemen and finance, 
As you might have dallied like him in an equal temptation. 
May be he absorbed all the bad of yourself and his mother 
And none of the good ; sometimes nature in freaks is sardonic. 
Let us learn to be slow to condemn and be swift to examine. 
Some day ethics and ethnics will settle these things on their merits. 
So making us wdser and leaving us proud of our patience. 

228. 

Peter Faneuil, of Huguenot descent, was a freehanded Yankee 
In colonial days, when Yankee was Indian for English. 
He built Boston a Hall which that city will ever be proud of, 
As I shall forever be proud of the city that owns it. 
All great movements not earthquakes that stir up our planet and others 
Must therein be discussed, as they liave been for more than a century. 
Before they are fit for adoption in this world or any. 
I mean this sincerely, for Boston will not bite at tafify. 
Faneuil Hall has never been damned except by the Fenii, 
Who rioted once because it was rented to Britons 
On terms the same as those whereon Fenii had used it. 
This exhibits just the esteem in which Fenii hold freedom. 
I honor myself, not this Hall, by the mention I make of it ; 
In all the list 'tis the happiest, the quaintest and breeziest, 
Although Halls, as the rule, are the homes of immature enterprise. 
Old Exeter Hall to me lacked the freshness of Faneuil ; 
But London makes new things look older than old things in Boston, 
And Faneuil, I deem, is several times older than Exeter. 
Nor can I see why it was named for the great town of Devon, 

220 



The big county of beef, mutton, butter and beautiful women. 

York itself, although larger, is not more imperial than Devon, 

And, as Fluellen would say, they both have cathedrals. 

But in Exeter I found nothing that seemed transcendental ; 

Rather much solid county pride I observed in the county 

Of Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Blake, General Monk and John Churchill, 

And others of fame worthy Milton to group them in muster, 

Who was sonorous with angels and devils, but missed the Devonians ; 

Great men in their day, and none can be great in another's ; 

Where gentlemen live who envy not London to live in ; 

For, as one of them told me, any fellow can be a Londoner, 

But a gentleman is required to be an Exeter man. 

229. 

The church beneficiary lives by the martyr of science 
If we consider the Pope and Columbus together. 
For one fate of Columbia has been to furnish much money. 
Whereby Popes, even as anti-popes, have failed not to profit. 
And properly too, since nothing can go without money. 
This is doubtless all right in the economics beyond us, 
Since the true God has science in hand as well as religion. 
And in time will develop them both to our purified vision. 
It is not his fault if he did not intend us to see this 
Until, in his juc^gment, not ours, we were ripe for the knowledge; 
Yet it may be the density of our egoism blinds us 
To what might appear, would we be just a little less selfish. 
In ratio' as self is eliminate from identity 
The heart grows larger and warmer, the intelligence clearer. 
Mind sounder, more self-reliant without self-opinion. 
This is experience, not theory ; I had to grow old to attain it. 
And you, theologian, are not exempt from, this error, 
For you naturally love the emoluments of your duty. 
Wheresoever you know not enough to make conscience the larger 
And freer and clearer, you train it into a formula 
Or a dozen ; this eases your office, but makes life more gloomy 

221 



For the soul which you seek to keep true by keeping it narrow. 
Dollar and dogma must not prevail as the cult of the planet. 
This is not a preach, but a notion ; not even a new one. 

230. 

Westward the Inds of the East, unless land intervene there, 

For eighteen vears cried Columbus in court and in corner, 

Nor swerved from that faith, nor from West by the thrill of the needle. 

But land did intervene, still leaving the Orient to westward. 

And the giant sailor was true at all points of the compass. 

Consider how much the world owes the religion of science, 

And forget not how much that faith owes to complete its pretensions. 

Though the son of the goddess be slain at her shrine, his truth shines there 

And the faith of Columbus was greater than all which it lead to, 

The altar-light answering the candle that showed the first landfall. 

231. 

The next great prophet will be the disclaimant of prophecy. 

By leaving the great head to others and wearing the school cap. 

He will command more joint study and faith from the peoples. 

Who like it that prophets assume that the people know something. 

This will set you a-dreaming of higher personal destiny. 

And of national destinies built on higher personalities ; 

All evolved from the inward god, if you think you contain him, 

The successful seer is he who bets wisely on knowledge 

Of nature ; on what men will do within given conditions. 

But to discern present good is the gift of most value. 

If you were sure of the future, you still could not live in it, 

Brokeri threads of discourse may be of themselves a diversion, 

Relieving the mind from the application of logic, 

Or from continued strain when the theme is unworthy. 

A great statesman once told me Don Juan is the greatest of poems 

Because, other merits being equal, it makes no exactions. 

Bacon's essays are very abrupt as to classification, 



And Emerson shows no respect to the dovetail of thinking ; 
Flashes of Hghtning in thought correlating each other. 
A certain abruptness of thought is refreshing and stimulant. 
This explains the queer juxtaposition of some of my cantos. 

232. 

Civilization at home you denounce as imperfect, 

Yet you spread it abroad with the money and blood of your children, 

While reconcentrados abound in Manhattan and London, 

For I know them in both. Suppose we reverse the proportion 

Of the beatified vices of lucky minorities 

vVhich masquerade in the guise of the virtues they smother. 

Seek ye to give currency to the blood of high principle 

Through the veins of the race ; tatoo not the skin of society 

With the forms and colors that press themselves into the senses 

While the heart is an air-pump of cant, with the conscience in vacuo, 

Ever ready to work at the tasks that are never attempted. 

There is no intention of dogmatism in this canto. 

If you hire a hall, first make sure of the ventilation, 

For animal matter predominates at reunions 

And will till the spirit there worshipped shall make them superfluous. 

Winter mass-meetings are best ; the weather prevents them 

And your strong resolutions to get into trouble with somebody. 

Great thoughts set afloat in foul air appear grimly ironic. 

Can you heed sound advice while inhaling inimical ether? 

Better, O orator, take some advice about ether ! 

Do us good with good air as part of your scheme of enlightenment. 

It is more in accord with the civilization you are airing. 

233. 

Cease bragging and take up the difficult duty of thinking I 

Yet some great minds aver that keeping time-pieces and thinking 

Are wearing our race out with inconclusions and hurry. 

If you think so, perhaps you would better not do any thinking. 

223 



The prophet am I who affirms not, but asks your decision, 
Presenting you first certain propositions of nature, 
Even though they carry us back to the Garden of Eden, 
Of snakes, fruit, and beauty; primasval passion and sadness. 
Primogeniture, and long human descent from assassin ; 
The first spot in our cognizance and the last to be proud of. 
The nihilist is a descendant of Cain ; is it wonder 
That he will follow his second ancestor's example 
If government, food and society all be against him? 
You too are descended from Cain; will you give him these chances 
And punish him for the sequence of his heredity? 
We are demons all from the autocrat to the democrat, 
Those in command no better than those who are seeking it, 
Yet charged with the task of finding appeasable systems. 
Appease him with something to do more substantial than nihil ; 
Cain blood feeding Cain blood is a process less costly than fighting it. 
I put this on ground no higher than that of economy. 
All established orders are more or less menaced by nihilism. 
Democracy being at the point where profession and practice 
Are equally most in contradiction and contact, 
Should be first to explain the relations of people to people ; 
Whether democracy's final motto is ne plus ultra. 
But if it be that of democracy, it is not of nature, 
Which instead of adjusting herself to established conditions, 
Makes conditions and forces conform to her, or destroys them. 
Thus our hopes are in nature, unless I misunderstand her ; 
Sometimes slow with her snail, again sudden in power with Vesuvius. 
Among issues by nature negatived, one is equality, 
Except as a basis for working out the unequal. 
No dogma here. God will let somebody live to the end of it. 
And he will be happy in wagging the flag of the winner. 
Men younger than I have seen heresy changed into gospel. 
And men equally old have seen gospel glide into heresy ; 
And men of various ages have seen many stages 
Of effort collapse, and have lapsed and said nothing about it. 

224 



234- 

More economic thought and less thunder of thorax, 

Ye who are shotted with speech for the conquest of commerce, 

Whose opinions resound hke the rattle of misspent cloud-volley. 

Echo of nothing where silence and sunshine resume themselves gladly. 

Union of interests, not the cost of their ruin, will pay you. 

Commerce cannot be conquered by speech-thunder, army nor navy, 

Bince nothing but commerce in some form can pay to support them. 

Will you wreck trade existent wdiile seeking new commerce, O Kaiser? 

Creative conditions would operate to regain it, 

To the regaining of trade by the race which first built it. 

If yon ponder the terms you will not be too swift in beginning 

To take all the seas to yourself and the ports of the planet. 

And meantime the business is sunk that had yielded you living. 

No commerce, inflated currency, and more taxes; 

Every condition reversed which runs with prosperity. 

This would attract that all-daylight comedian the farmer, 

Whose inexpensive life is so loaded with pleasure 

That he would like just a dash of the pain of taxation 

As a sort of rounder-out in the ring of experience. 

I refer more especially now to the life of John Roudebush, 

On whose acres the sun never shone but to show him a-tilling, 

And from which he secured just sufficient to die by at eighty, 

Well taxed the while for the wars of political jingoes, 

Des escamoteurs du journalisme et du patriotisme, 

Who bet on the youth of the land to sustain their pretences, 

To shed their blood in the scheme to make newspapers richer. 

To extend the dominion and tighten the gripe of the dailies. 

I blame nobody, criticize nothing ; business is business 

With them as with me ; if I could quintuple my income 

I should promptly quintuple, expecting the press to try likewise. 

235- 

That primal sincerity which inspires lofty causes 

And maintains a new truth till its force becomes fixt in a statute, 

225 



I have learned is not the prime purpose in pubhshing papers. 

Experience is a sad tiprooter of noble convictions, 

Yet noble errors ought not to exist as convictions. 

The press espouses such causes vi^hen martyrs compel it, 

The victims of movements which live not till somebody dies for them. 

Sweet Sunday sentiment floating on summer verandah, 

Or log-fire suggestions that spurt in the heart of the winter 

When the log-light alone is aflame in the hearth-lover's fancy, 

Have no part in the plans leading up to the vineyard of Naboth. 

The jingoes invent a dilemma and write it up popular. 

Their occupation were gone had it not this inception, 

And the people lack the facilities for refuting it. 

The politicians seize promptly the newspaper tirade, 

Thereby floating the curse of war, and the nation supports it, 

Though not on a poll of the sense of the mass in its senses ; 

Virtuous motives, of course, being exploited after the victory. 

Suspect the low cunning of jingo as a cold deck at poker, 

Sons o' Freedom, whether played on you by highscribe or shouter. 

236. 

Whatsoever else dodges taxes, land certainly pays them. 

Henry George will be universally recognized some day, 

And most gladly by those now the least disposed to accept him. 

The first creditor is the plow, said Ned Burke about India. 

The farmers are the founders of human civilization. 

Said Dan Webster; a man of great gifts in making impressions. 

Wherever they go, added Webster in meeting bucolic, 

All else follows, but they must go first ; and be first for assessment. 

Who will tax himself that another may perish of famine? 

What industry can pay mulct for suppressing another? 

I humbly suggest more thought, and less fooling and thunder. 

237- 

The conquest of commerce will follow wise laws as to currency 
And commerce itself; laws better than any existent, 

226 



Which invite and facilitate, with good faith and good manners ; 

Which operate with mutual favor instead of repelling : 

Qualities in which France is sadly deficient toward Britain, 

But which France, who must never be trusted, will deplore with effusion. 

The God who set industry up as the law of our living 

Intended it not as the victim of selfishness savage 

And bloody autocracy, whether of one mian or millions. 

Privilege cut off from the few and bestowed on the many 

Is autocracy worse than that of the absolute monarch. 

I can appeal to the Czar, but not to ten million czars, 

Statute law is void where the partisan fears to enforce it 

Lest the party adhering to treaty be put in minority 

At the next election because popular will is against it. 

Filibustero Americano had no rights in Cuba 

Except that of being put to death for the breaking of treaty 

And for rough red crime in violating law in that island ; 

Yet the States were afraid to enforce the treaty that bound them 

In universal law as in honor and morals ; 

And thence came the courage of war through the fear of the parties. 

Democracy being the latest organized system 

Of responsible government, must meet criticism like monarchy. 

It is apt to set up demagogues as an oligarchy 

And thus double it up; both the few and the many as tyrant. 

God's orders may not be evaded by song, dance and usquebaugh 

Unless in the instances in which Tammany dictates. 

Not a ton of trade can be conquered but by higher justice. 

Till that come the wisest will hold what he has and deserve it. 

Do not shout about this until after protracted, deep thinking. 

Or shout loud and long as you can, to prevent you from thinking. 

Russia will give to the States any warrant requested 
Till the Siberian Railway be opened, then millions of soldiers 
Will line the Chinese coasts ; whereon Muscovite explanation 
Will neutralize all guarantees ; and the Yangtsekiang valley 

227 



For Britain, as well as the treaty-ports for the Yankee, 

Will be subject to tariff for profit of subjects of Russia. 

Too late are ye, States ; you ought to have made cause with Britain 

When Lord Beresford showed the joint value of open-door policy. 

238. 

An exhaustive work is the least influential of any 

Because it is also exhausting; if you make it suggestive 

The reader is sure to exhaust for himself all he wishes, 

xA-nd take pride in the author for having excited ideas 

Instead of loading him up with your own limitations. 

I could easily prove many things in this book, but prove nothing, 

Because you would cry that mere proof is my point, and disprove it,. 

Or prove something else as far as Luzon from my topic. 

]\Iathematics, to which nobody appeals who can help it. 

And from which there is no appeal, as a source of amusement 

Compares not with sermon by Knox on the errors not Knox's. 

239- 

Mistake me not for a pessimist. I am an optimist 
Who clearly and cheerfully shows there is nothing in anything. 
We have gone far enough to call something a civilization. 
Though we dare not describe it in full to good sense nor to conscience. 
V/e should be further ahead were it not for a reason I name not. 
When a great man has led the way up to the mark, the small gentry 
Vociferate that they could have reached it without him, 
Thus explaining their own existence by stealing his glory. 
A career is what predilection chooses to make it. 
Or that to which malice or prejudice fixes the stigma. 
The freisinnigge fellows can never* do justice to Bismarck, 
Who, uniting their race, built a nation thereon and an empire ; 
The people's father, the Fiirst, the surpasser of Armin, 
Whose vice equalled his virtue in everything but importance. 

228 



The freisinnigg-e sect would have rendered such empire impossible 
And the Germanic race without place among peoples. 

240. 

The past is less one vast fact for mankind than a figment, 

Like the future ; a fiction established ; a vision from sternwalk 

Like the receding stars, monumental, immortal, 

Whether they shine above or below the horizon, 

But casting no light on the page of the ship's destination; 

One a mere fad for discussion, the other for prophecy, 

With the present a limbo of chance not related to either, 

Since the present is lacking in mind for correlative fitting. 

Give me the light o'er the bow for the prow of my sport-boat ! 

Every ship's length sailed gives me so much of yacht-fun Dionysan 

With a bigger past, sunset by sunset, and future exhaustless. 

For I doubt that Dionysus could now find a port should he wish one. 

So changed are the laws about piracy, pleasure and commerce. 

And so long as I make not a landfall my voyage is eternal. 

241. 

1 have survived from the reign of King Richard the Second 
Who dined ten thousand friends every day ; hence my optimism 
And pessimism have a dash of the mediaeval, 
Of the time before coal had made London so rich and disfigured. 
In that epoch we did not trouble ourselves about progress ; 
'Twas a white-rose period till the red gave it ominous shading. 
We were as blind as the moderns concerning the future 
And tried not, as you do, to discount it into the present, 
Content with a city that paid not with soot for its riches. 
We had just as much relative luck, and more fun, and less ofifset 
With Richard the liberal, beautiful, proud and unhappy ; 
Born to luck, which is vastly less lucky than having to earn it. 

242. 

A purpose has been to keep poetry out of my metre. 
Pray note my success by your cubic share of afflatus. 

229 



Some call it great head, but afflatus is much the more rhythmic. 

Still others say genius ; but genius has come to seem comic. 

Yet I advocate the great head not the less ; fifty failures 

To one success make one man and the world more successful 

Than they were, and they can afiford to see fifty unhappy 

If they be ahead ; 'tis but bearing the sorrows of others. 

Moreover, dispraise of great head makes a spoil of ambition. 

Constant ridicule breaks up your purpose at last, and you issue 

Not glad to be anything; proud to be trifler with all things. 

Therefore let us respect the great head, even while it diverts us. 

This book will be read by the men who have failed ; they will like it. 

This book will be read by the men who have won ; they will hate it, 

Because it exposes their luck masquerading as judgment. 

A secular bible for those who are beaten in the conflicts 

Of secular life has long been a want ; the successful 

Never read anything excepting their own private tablets. 

The milestones or yardsticks which measure their ways to their innings. 

And so few arc they 'tis not dangerous to defy them. 

I am consequently sure of a large circulation. 

243- 

I quarrel with nothing per se, but request some big citizen 
To be prompt in calling the bluft' of the Pluti of politics. 
A tariff is made in the shops that require its protection 
And goes through the constitutional forms of enactment. 
One result is that some foreign wares are lower than British in Britain. 
The Plutus partisan says this is due to the artisan 
Who knows British wants and supplies them better than Britons. 
This is bluff and not truth ; for these grasping political Pluti 
Taking 'vantage of their masses infatuated 
With the shibboleth of protection, charge double prices 
To their countrymen in order to undersell Britons 
In Britain. The day of reckoning will come to these Pluti 
When an electoral majority shall drop to their racket, 
And a foreign people shall quit paying two or three profits 

230 



To their millionaires that they may starve Britons in Britain. 

This truth becomes self-evident by its statement. 

Meanwhile call the bluff loud enough to break up the gamble ! 

243^- 

Individuals quick to perceive may be slow in the aggregate ; 
But this aggregate when campaigned enough in the verities 
Votes the other way at high pressure ; 'tis thus that democracy 
In its activities is the slowest as well as the most tidal-wavy. 
But the taxing-power of the state as the citizen's partner 
Is played out for plucking the mass for the millionaire's coffers. 
This is the last of the decades for fortunes so garnered 
And may be the first to suggest the distributive forces. 

244. 

Set not your nose as in pose of a smell everlasting 

When there is nothing to smell. This refers to a Senator 

Who set the world laughing as puritan only can start it 

Because President would not debate on a foreign Queen's morals. 

Verily the godly continue as fearless of manners 

As when they held manners an affectation ungodly 

By curriculum both theologic and social. 

Pretense of candor conceals not its lack from sincerity. 

Be more frank in recalling your few sprees of youth, and the many 

Wherefrom the contractile cube of your pocket deterred you, 

Senator, perhaps gray and old by mere fact of deterrence. 

The hard fate which withholds from soft sins is not always a hardship. 

245- 

Now, concerning the wrongs and false orders of civilization 
Whereof Britain pretends to be mistress and hopes to improve it, 

1 do not care to be at all easy with Britain. 

231 



Her row is hard, but is mainly self-made ; might be harder. 

iWill she take a blow indirect from the rich gueuse of nations? 

If she do, may all Asia laugh in her face for a humbug 

And invite her, a penitent Eve unworthy an Adam, 

Too contemptible to be worthy even an Adam, 

To the Garden of Eden alone, not a mistress of empires, 

But alone to reform and reorganize her pretensions. 

I am inclined to the Germans, but not to their Kaiser. 

Since his sudden impertinent attempt on the Transvaal, 

Although he was bought to be good by some later concessions. 

But let that people think deeply on British experience 

In setting up the chance Oi secession as part of a colony 

When its day comes for paying part of the cost of defending it. 

A rich nation not allied is poor by gratuitous rivals. 

Who, not up to its tasks, simply covet the luck of another. 

We need always a hundred thousand more men with the colors. 

246. 

I seek not to inscribe my own praise with the pen of the patriot. 

For truly I deem the estate the last refuge of fellows 

Who become public men because private life tires of their virtues. 

Deroulede deroule Ic mobile ; and I leave him the honors, 

With his quiet three months for noisily hooting his President. 

A people requiring so much whooping-up is not worth it. 

Had he died after "Chants du Soldat" his race would have deified him. 

But most patriots live too long for their luck and their glory. 

Heart of people and patriot grow weary one of another 

In time, and what next will he do is the query of cynics 

Who were formerly worshippers ; and then passe is the patriot. 

The raison d'etre of an army is not in the army 

But in its purpose : it is triste to regard it as fetich. 

But Deroulede will in story be big, and will merit his size there. 

But I would rather be critic than shouter in patriotism. 

Not mine to flourish the sign of political Pourceaugnac, 

But to ponder transcendent issues domestic and foreign 

232 



Till their weight overbear me before I can clear up an issue. 

I wish I could shut out the truth like a crank of symposium, 

Or some fellows who brought on two wars, with neither war needed. 

But I am not a turtle at play on the sea-beach of freedom 

To draw myself into my shell with the foe in the offing. 

The wages of sin is death ; and the wages of error 

Not more satisfactory : shall Great Britain collect them ? 

247. 

A. quadrennial republic, not very much smaller than China, 
Turning outward its inwardness for political funsters, 
May seem a colossal farce to the Queen of Hawaii, 
Who has her own views of the comic, though you may not share them, 
This microscopic ex-Oueen of those Sugar-Tipt Corals, 
A.nd might chirrup so lowly and sweetly that you could not hear her, 
So small she was and so far from the din of your interests. 
But you went aghast at this little Black Domino's daring 
The suppression of which was first clause in the creed of your duty. 
iSFothing comic to you in the loss of an opera-bouffe kingdom 
By the woman who lived, loved and reigned like the little Grand Duchess, 
A.nd as every such woman has lived, loved and reigned, and you know it ; 
A.lthough nothing like her out of Ofifenbach seems quite so funny 
From Japan to Britannia outside your huge partisan circles, 
True, almighty self-justifier, democratic or nothin'. 
This sweet status quo would suggest a libretto hilarious, 
Or a fresh status quo, any quo would be sure to be comic, 
If Gilbert could long enough conquer his laughter to write one. 
With Sir Arthur exhausting the airs of the cane-brake to float it. 
Hooked on to a high moral task, you are grim even to sarcasm. 
Vour dignity and your chastity equal your area 
As you deal with this little black Queen in the Central Pacific, 
While my statesman of nostrils expanded smells nothing in Mazet, 
Though the arcs at the tip of his nose still retain their full curve-lines. 
Why not take the Offenbach view of this strained situation 
And giantly laugh with that woman of color off color, 

233 



And thus jointly end it as I would? Your size was your safety; 

Hers was not ; microscopic Lil of the Saccharine Sandhills. 

Alas that the moral should sprout with the profits that grow there ! 

248. 

Belief in personal god carries with it the credence 
That personified principle attracts and assures the most loyalty. 
Masses, classes, equality editors, professional patriots 
When well mixt for the raising of themes unto human confusion,, 
Find god in everything ; whether personal or impersonal 
Makes no difference for the purpose of human confusion. 
God in everything signifies not too much god in anything, 
And suggests the self-worship of man for the god that is in him 
As preferable to adoring the dumbness of nature, 
The irresponsive monotony of the m_ountains 
And other big things always needing interpretation. 
And variable according to udiim of the worshipper ; 
Million worshippers with whims and gods by the million. 
Thus concrete loyalty in such absence of system 
Cannot exist outside of the individual, 
Who is loyal to god in himself, or volcano, or anything. 
There is no intended abuse or misuse in this canto. 
Nor in any ; let us be candid, colloquial, unstilted. 
Wliile loyalty stays in abstractions you may embody it 
As well as another ; and this keeps yoii always an egotist ; 
And if you prefer to remain one, whether in government 
Or religious or social contact, I give up the argument. 
Whereas if another embody it first you are loyal 
In a higher air : you would not be god if you could there, 
Since extinction is sweeter than aspiration exhausted. 
And the god, being complete, extinguishes aspiration. 
How would you feel without hope or fear as a human, 
Without aspiration, wish, want or yearn to be satisfied ? 
I would stay as I am and have something to fight for and win on,. 
And die as I might, or I must, but with loyalty in me. 

234 



Am I an egotist ? Yes, but for helping the altruist ; 

The force of the ego is sanctified in that purpose 

But not in another, and must not be carried beyond it. 

Only the Tammany classification of wisdom 

Pretends that a gang is sanctified by mere numbers. 

The point here is not politico-social, but moral : 

It transcends tiger-yells, whooping-up and all self-satisfaction. 

Do not live wrongly ever, feigning to deem you live rightly. 

Such pretence, in the end, will eat out the heart of a people. 

Be not too sure of monarchy nor of democracy 

As they at present exist ; I am not fighting principles ; 

W'>h the top too narrow and basis too broad, and no gradient. 

If the buffing body come in a form economic 

You v/ill be buffed off ; but I say no more about buffing. 

If I be your rival on parallel lines, do not shoot me ; 

We are side by side ; I am not in the way of your progress. 

'Tis an argument in my favor that I can be rival 

To one so big, new and true as you are in dealings. 

Do not sink to be crank from anger, nor envy, nor egoism. 



249. 



We so often sacrifice Moses to bring out some talent 
That the talent outlives not the frown of the seer, as it ought not, 
Neither ambition nor science can overrule morals 
And gain any permanent benefit for the humans. 
Not theocracy nor republicanism could tranquillize Cromwell ; 
No fate more humiliating than that of Lord Bacon. 
Some titan occult, just a dash more astute than your gift-man, 
Sardonic through long misuse of his patience, yet playful, 
Conducts into disappearance the car of his genius 
Because he was shallow and rash, though he may not so see it, 
And his little life is thus wrecked by its vain misdirection. 
For a steady career I advise the omission of genius. 

235 



250. 

I would rather be Jason still cruising for treasure ideal, 

Pulling plain wool over rival eyes chasing the golden, 

Hunting rich sheep more evasive as sailors than I am, 

Than be drifting in fields where the treasure is only self-worship 

Of those flattened out by the rolling-pin of equality 

While waiting till evolution provide other object. 

High table-land if you choose, 'tis the grave of ambition 

Where I kneel to myself on the summit of limitation 

And find my monotonous friend at his own adoration. 

No matter how high the dead level, 'tis dead when you reach it ; 

A divide continental whence gravitation is deepward, 

Where a geyser splits up for four creeks to be lost in four oceans. 

Leave us not without hope on this plain ; give us something to climb for ! 



251. 

Let us see if there be in the dismal science some laughter ; 
Or if not, then at me for the way I explain economics. 
It matters not who takes the hits so we get the amusement, 
And the referee will call break ere the cranium be injured. 
The chief trouble with those who write about economics 
Is in taking themselves too seriously; 'tis so hard to be easy. 
They are so impressed with the weight of their own impressiveness 
That the ink almost disintegrates on their pen-points. 
Nowhere else is the great head so great, nor endowments so varied ; 
So high, wide, correct, contradictory and unflinching. 
It will always be thus till some Falstafif of mathematicians 
Shall capsize the lot, setting us right with the figures of humor. 
A rich government means a poor people; then wherefore enrich it? 
Is your genius inventing new intricacies for amusement. 
Or are you magnetized by mere size of the subject? 
The sense and good taste of the plebs in abusing patricians 
Are at par with those of the opulent damning plebeians. 

236 



Let us begin an entente based on mutual civility; 

We might thence build a system of economics on ethics. 



252. 



No government can create from Sahara a cornfield ; 
The people do that and the government taxes them for it, 
And sometimes they use up rich cornfields that were not Saharas 
By providing too many mouths : let us see how this strikes you. 
The Three Kingdoms contain twenty millions who eat foreign produce 
Or eat nothing ; that is their choice ; will the Commons protect them 
Without ministerial initiative, or leave them to famine 
In the fool's palace while somebody seizes our commerce 
In the midst of immortal talk about more talking-houses ? 
One right of freedom is to talk itself into destruction 
While claiming more of itself for itself than is useful. 
The joy of the autocrat overflows when he sees this right working. 
Let twelve hundred Parliamentarians waste time and money 
On domestic improvements, while running behind with the Navy 
And Army, and manifest destiny, which began here 
In Britain, will manifest itself in some other empire 
With another tongue, ours not being up to such greatness. 
Is the British Empire to drop to the rank of the Portuguese, 
With all things to sell and nothing to eat as the difference, 
In this year or any ? I do not set up a time-limit. 
Neither fix the blame on any particular Ministry; 
One is the same as another to me, for a winner : 
Another to me is the same as the one, for a loser. 
We must be strong or be starved, and no midway plaisance. 
Will the Commons make this the motto for all preaching Cabinets?' 
If the States must inherit us ultimately, let us leave them 
The indisputable power, a fortune centupled. 
This will keep them careful and friendly while waiting the legacy. 
They are never sordid, we know ; they are circumspect only. 

237 



253- 

Let us chop logic together, but not on false premises. 

Recall that this is a comedy; nothing is tragic : 

I tell not here how it will end, but the end will be happy. 

What appears serious is simply well feigned from the comic, 

Because serious conceptions of anything are merely relative 

And result from inadequate intelligence and instruction. 

Martin Luther is lauded for what he would have prevented : 

The logical outcome of his reform made him sorry 

And frightened ; but this is of course concealed by his partisans. 

But is not the comic element strong in the praises 

Given a man for attempting one task and achieving another ? 

One may represent God to the end, yet may see not the ending. 

No irreverence here ! for, whether as prophet or accident. 

No providence has been greater for freedom than Luther. 

Vast individual fortunes are fine for their owners, 

But they do not make any people any the richer. 

That is the principal text of the future economy. 

There is a fine wildness in thinking of Richard the Second 

Feeding ten thousand men per day, though scarce ten deserved it. 

The Pacific Railways bestowed on few men many millions ; 

But the masses, as such, acquire their cheap transportation 

By Canadian Pacific from the Pacific to Shawmut, 

And the millionaires promptly tariff' the mass from its freedom. 

Dividends is the cry, though they come out of forced contributions. 

Will these transcontinentals permit success to Nicaragua? 

With a million mine own, I simply retire to cut coupons, 

Or with ten ; any large sum will do tO' illustrate the principle. 

Although nobody borrows my capital simply to please me. 

Yet I take a low interest for safety and live like an oyster. 

What to me is public spirit against private compound interest? 

Have I not five hundred a day at a single per centum ? 

Ten with a tenth of a million must work to make more of it. 

And make work for a dozen where I make but work for a unit. 

Yet if I invest my uncapitalized friends might absorb me, 

238 



I mean my small pile, while wrecking themselves and me also. 

Thus the capitalist is not the only bad fairy ; do you see this ? 

I am safe while you fail or succeed, and am perfectly neutral. 

Nothing- simpler nor clearer, and yet Temescal may contest it, 

That county with tin gods, tin nobles and tariff all tinless. 

What do you think of Temescal as tin-suzerain ? 

By comparison Tennyson's county god was a footman ; 

Yet Aylmer owned land, if not tin, and Temescal no tin ! 

Idealize nothing and lie, and so become suzerain. 

Lie and persist, and so become land-or-tin-suzerain. 

Capitalize nothing and sell its bonds at a premium. 

This is somewhere called financiering; what do you call it? 

Then persuade your country to spread a tariff all over it. 

This is for sport, with tin suzerain lighthearted as I am. 

Temescal was a giant joke whose foot covered a count}'' 

As he called for investments that came not to poor California, 

And I have decided to give it a place in fun-history. 

254- 

John and William are brothers and rich : while they were unwealthy 

I used to wait several days to collect my commissions. 

Now I have none to collect; my argument, therefore, 

Favors small men who can pay in the end, even if laggard. 

If I cannot have these I must favor cooperation. 

If not that, I strike ; like Tammany at Manhattan. 

One of the means of distributing fortunes colossal 

Is to make laws that will drive them to some other country. 

Distribution, you see, works both ways ; one you like, and one I like. 

If you drive fortunes to me by law, I am not poorer. 

255- 

As hitherto known, does democracy wish for the gentleman? 
As either was hitherto known ? For may be the democrat 
Is only half of himself, and likewise the gentleman, 

239 



Each unaware of his ignorance; but both have a chance here. 

Shriek not about snobs ; if you answer, keep close to the topic. 

Do not forget that this question is wholly conditional 

And with Demos and Pericles brought into stunning suggestion. 

Keep your howitzer still on the hip ; this theme is immortal 

Till somebody give it the answer that shows its mortality. 

I am not trilling these notes for suspending discussion: 

This, to intellectual life in high form, is essential. 

A man leaves a country wherein he was not rated gentlemar ; 

And goes to a country where no man can be not a gentleman 

And immediately joins the band ; which settles the question 

For both by accentuating the difference of premise ; 

A good way to settle ; it saves us much waste of persuasion. 

But the party who last joined the band declines to accept it, 

And vociferates, till the other is ready for suicide, 

That he is a gentleman perfect, though none has denied it 

Nor does, nor will ; yet this gentleman keeps on affirming. 

This seems a definition eclatante of gratuitous. 

But I leave you to place him somewhere 'twixt Demos and Pericles.. 

256. 

There was very much accident in Columbus and Franklin, 
And notably in their luck in avoiding mischances ; 
An accident in itself, but of course in their favor. 
Columbus just escaped foundering against his first landfall, 
And Franklin just happened to miss being hit by the lightning. 
As a great man who earned without luck I prefer Daniel Webster, 
Whose greatness was strictly impelling, without luck or money, 
Though he might have been, spite of his seerage, too Julian in conscience. 
But a thoro'ly selfish intellect without conscience, 
If policy make him and keep him defender of virtue.. 
Is the very best possible fellow for chief of your system, 
Because conscience bothers him not about personal scruples. 
This does not mean a bad man without mind, pray remember. 
1 am humble enough, telling only an aged man's story, 

240 



But I see a race alien in faith adopting your politics 

Solely to win your domain as the basis of empire 

Indicated in Dante's Monarchia, but without its generosity, 

And with all the despotism that goes with the conscience 

Cut off from enlightened mind. This idea I pray you to force into politics* 

They thank your forefathers 
With smiling irony for a system that eases 
The lives of their foreign successors, foreign in all things ; 
Accepting their luck, which is irony on your fathers, 
Who had cursed their own success could they have foreseen this, 
The Luthers they of what they would not have permitted ; 
'Admiring the aureole ironic that lights up those foreheads 
Who prepared the way for reviving mediaeval effort ; 
For revivifying in a fresh hemisphere the ages 
Called middle, midway between science and art theocratic 
And the freedom to think outside of pontific prescription ; 
Democracy used to reestablish theocracy 
By destroying democracy, not to preserve it by nursing 
Fifty denominations now freely dotting its acres. 
Every warning effective possesses a biblical virtue. 
I have shouted my little observance ; you know how to heed it. 



257. 

Philanthropy and capital are antagonistic, 
Since merely to give away surplus is not true philanthropy. 
One will always be sacrificed, but it will not be capital. 
Philanthropy signifies love of man, not of hoarding 
That in the technical sense you may be philanthropic. 
Do not dump in a charity lump the wages you paid not, 
The percentage whereby you grew opulent in withholding. 
Show your love by not grasping, your courage by not dodging issues. 
When I dogmatize, even in fun, you need not agree with me. 
Because there is sport in antagonizing the fun-men ; 
When not comic, the most serious of men is the comic editor. 

241 



To stop anarchy by taxation you put it on income. 

Develop your morals up to the grade of your egoism 

And you will never dispute this, nor cease wondering at history. 

Some men deemed human nature fit for democracy ; 

Some others will deem it fitted for something much better ; 

In spite of you, logic forces itself, as with Luther. 

Nor will the most narrow and rigid of democrats regret it 

When the general good shall supplant giant paupers and fortunes. 

Casimir-Perier favors income-tax ; he is opulent. 

Cardinal Hfred once preached that it is not his duty 

To alleviate the misery whereto he does not contribute. 

The Cardinal's coupons are three hundred guineas per diem. 

And yet there are fountains of fun in my Cardinal Cachecaisse. 

Nature made him for greatness, but steadily fate seems to thwart her. 

We laughed at high speed without cess seventy miles of a journey. 

No man wholly bad can laugh on in one stream for that distance. 

A wee man once struggled with diplomacy as he understood it ; 

Cachecaisse might have smashed his contention in one of his fun-bursts. 

But he took himself seriously, thus offering a butt to the jokesmiths, 

And let slide the chance for destroying jingo with ridicule. , 



258. 

The philosopher is a person propounding first principles, 
Or expounding them, or discussing ; or who suffers with fortitude. 
That is, as reward for expoundings he takes other poundings. 
And bears it as well as he must, and then calls it fortitude. 
Others, by the way, not philosophers, have taken much pounding. 
The philosophizer diflfers from him in some aspects. 
He is the crank who propounds, or expounds, or discusses 
The notions and tenets that float in the place of ideas. 
My Lothair shines as both ; as the former, highly instructive ; 
As the latter, forgive me the levity, highly amusive. 
But philosophy of any degree is mere substitute 
For the very activities which would render it needless. 

242 



259- 

By income-tax graded discourage the grasp on liigh millions. 

I am dealing with science now, not your avarice-fury, 

But you have the free right, of course, to pulverize my argument, 

But not to deny nor ignore in blind passion of egoism. 

I accept the pulverizing now, but your grandson will reintegrate it. 

One tax for all is the irony of equality. 

No one man has the right to a revenue fit for a nation 

Unless a grand jury of poor comic writers be willing. 

Whatever makes the poor richer, or the rich poorer, 

Is not of democratic but strictly of populist practice, 

Populist being euphemistic for socialist practice. 

Or that of the commune ; the naming does not concern me. 

Democracy in its way is as rigorous as absolutism ; 

Merely look at the purse and both pull the strings in convulsions. 

The poor brother shoulders the state while the rich one applauds him. 

If I have six hundred a year and Cornelius six millions , 

And the customs-tax average each of us fifty per centum, 

Is that justice, equality, equity, even true freedom? 

Why not ten per cent, income-tax and save forty per centum 

By abolishing the political drones of the customs 

And freeing the arms of each race for the common advantage? 

This is an uppermost question and presses for answer. 

Not ten per cent, on all incomes, you know ; on the biggest : 

Then graduate downward ; the kicks will be high in proportion. 

When rich newspapers call themselves off from this theme, and the poor ones 

Cease from booming the wealth which for them lacks the boomerang action. 

We shall touch universal peace and sound finance and freedom. 

Tis the secular proof of your piety makes the strong convert. 

Are you practicing the self-sacrifice you inculcate ? 

Any parson may orate, but does he make money from sugar? 

He who taketh no personal chances in commerce for living 

May live well from his coupons ; is it not. Caput Inflatum, 

iB'*ated Hierophant and Fanciful Fenius of Finance ? 

243 



26o. 

We are all superior to fortune, you know, till we get it. 
The man of no gold becomes blatant in favor of silver ; 
But let him own something and gold is his shining ideal, 
Doubling itself by mere sensitiveness to accretion ; 
So they say who are ardent that silver go through the same process. 
No man refuses gold value in lieu of his silver. 
Is a people more rich by more money of cheaper material 
Than it is by its food at low price and in permanent plenty ? 
If so be it, why do you seek to make silver the dearer? 
Why was I not born the Comus of many per centum ? 
Britain will not be boycotted out of gold station. 

When both sides have been heard the result is rough on the egotist. 
No matter what metal might be in the calf of his worship. 
Your millionaire men do not pay for the millionaire nation ; 
They give the repute, leaving poor men to pay to sustain it. 
Thus vast wealth, as objective prize or as object of envy. 
Demoralizes the people condemned to behold it, 
For envy not only augments, but grows into covetousness 
Since syndicate doctrine supplanted the doctrine of forepops. 
I am not setting class against class, but revamping old sawstock. 
Popular values belong in the pocket and not in the Treasury. 
Altruism and economics unite about income. 
I am merely recalling a genius for finance like Hamilton, 
And pray that a new one may smite the rock of your resource. 
Touch the corpse of the public credit and bring it upstanding. 
You will live to see this idea hailed as a blessing 
If you be very young and push it with vigor uncommon. 

261. 

There will be no more poets ; the corporate bodies absorb them. 
Dividends provide everything now that the bard could imagine, 
And instead of vain sighs for grand figures we buy them with guineas. 
From airy nothings materialized down to gold pieces, 

244 



'Tennyson was dairyman as well as peer and a poet, 

And Shakespeare himself would be chairman of some big stock company, 

With curt comment on any one dreaming of Lear or Ophelia, 

Meditation fancy-free meditating on money ; 

Fancy-free to be tickled, you know, with the hope of big profits ; 

For the figures of comedy free, not the bore of conclusions. 

lYea, directors the poets are now, with ideals in syndicate. 

262. 

If great in one line, permit not the world to be fooled on you 
For half a dozen brands of the mind of high order. 
Uecduse you catch fish, do not set yourself up as disciple ; 
One sort of success is not sure to forerun you another. 
So be prompt with the discipline that denotes true disciple 
If piety be attached to your luck while a-fishing, 
And assure the misled of your fitness only for angling. 

263. 

We admit that the churches and politics are deficient 
In power to compel the right living holy and worldly. 
This we privately know and deplore as we reason by conscience. 
But in synods and senates we solemnly deem them effective 
For purposes public against our convictions in private. 
And in their defence slay our kindred as doctrinal duty. 
While inwardly aware of the criminal humbug; 
While the late Mr. Grievely's ex-friend defends it with eloquence. 
No other known thing is equally vast in hypocrisy, 
Mr. Grievely's ex-friend being blamable only with millions. 
I recall nothing else of activity quite so atrocious. 
May the next revolution be led by our Heavenly Father ! 
He is a natural leader ; debating societies 
Arrayed and equipt as an army do not elect him. 
I am weary of error in arms in the name of that Father, 
Of mistakes in the churches and politics ever-recurring, 
And I fail to find permanent hope in a different captain. 

245 



264. 

Are the gods the things that men make them ? Let lis concede it. 

What does it prove ? That a god is a truth even to Plato, 

And that Plato, a man, is not enough god for the infidel. 

A god, though a figment, responds to a yearning in nature. 

Filling a space that is abstract because it is abstract. 

Wherein Plato is useless because even Plato is concrete. 

And a deity must dwell in a kingdom intangible. 

Imagination cannot be torn from our order, 

And he who can make not a god will take that of another, 

Having fancy enough to adopt though he cannot create one. 

Not disease is imagination, nor something superfluous. 

But an insight formative by faith of the hope that is in us. 

So that man as a maker of gods is at last what gods make him, 

W'hether they make him a Plato or leave him with Pluto 

Or permit his election to govern the poor as a Plutus ; 

For in these things there is no mystery unless you allow it. 

265. 

Seize the sense when there is any ; skip the rhetorical soughing. 
The purpose of rhetoric is to make you do my duty. 
I speak well and wax in renown, while my brother the soldier 
Goes to help fill a nameless trench with a nameless thousand 
As a military result of my wonderful speeches. 
Envy is only the maw-worm of motives uplifting. 
But he seems to hold on to his bite with judicious tenacity. 
Where all men are levelled the law of the fittest survival 
Produces the Spartan of Christians whose thesis of Olivet 
Opes the forum of faith to the doctrinaires of the spoiler. 
The Spartans were ruled from Olympus, and not from Walhalla ; 
Our Thor would have hammered their heads till the breed was extinguished 
Instead of setting them up as a classic example, 
These foragers ashamed even of nothing, so far as I know them. 
But conscience is never an active force with the pagan ; 

246 



'Tis an abstraction ornamental in literature, 

But as operative force it is not to be called on. 

To speak in low form your highest self-interest is Christian. 

I do not refer to the prophet so much as the prophecy ; 

For 'tis in the secular aspect, not that of the prophet, 

That Christ looms the greatest of men, quite apart from the Saviour ; 

As the product in man of his prophecy I adore him. 

266. 

What thought burns worse than that Crucifixion was necessary, 

That is, if it was not atrociously unnecessary? 

Rebellion against it may yet gain a force governmental ; 

For a late dawn seems expanding in human intelligence, 

One that shows sacrifice up insuiifiiciently justified ; 

Or if still it be truly required, it must pass from necessity : 

Many once necessary things have passed out of necessity. 

And sacrifice as a principle ought to pass with them. 

To immolate one that another may thrive, or a million, 

.Is a proposition for universal rejection. 

Nor should any degree of sacrifice be accepted. 

One eased by the pain of another is self-contradiction 

In genuine morals, and should be in practical ethics. 

How can I enjoy a release whereby you become burdened? 

My grief should be rather increased by the size of your burden. 

Throw off the theory that sacrifice is legitimate 

As a principle, though circumstance call on you for it 

By reasons of cowardice, selfishness, errors and precedent. 

No self-contradiction here ; be large enough for the subject. 

I am altruist while altruism shall be necessary. 

But insist on eliminating sacrifice from necessity. 

Imm.olation, or anything like it, should never be called for ! 

267. 

Now, infidel Fenius of Finance, fiinder my Comedy! 
Take everything seriously since I put you in ridicule. 

247 



A satire on patriotism ought to include all the patriots 

In a mass, but not in detail, for no book could contain them, 

No, nor all the print in the nation suffice for their muster-roll. 

The chief is he whom his country lifts into riches 

By legislation ; if not, why is he so lifted ? 

Put on your best parvenu airs and rave in a reverie 

Brilliant with showers of coupons falling due daily 

And not neglecting to arch out a rainbow while. falling 

And never forgetting to fall in materialized vision, 

That wealth is the portion of those who are lucky in industry. 

Not the share of the citizens faithful to industry simple ; 

That learning and age are wasted as not teaching cumulus, 

And that he who may not be a luckster is lucky as emmet. 

Rich men teach from wealth because riches include every learning, 

Whether the richards began as Oxonians or cabmen. 

You must be wealthy to learn how opulence brings knowledge ! 



268 



Why should civil war result in a new crop of ethics ? 

Civil war that trains later a few sudden fortunes gigantic 

Trains also a period exceptional, not twice expected, 

A terrible preach of wealth for the sake of wealth only ; 

The sordid formula of the prophet of millions 

Who teaches the law of contentment to those who have nothing ; 

Destructive of popular morals ; an epoch to run from. 

Since it reeks with avarice, jingo, envy and patriotism. 

The feudalist victim grown rich by the grace of new chances 

Surpasses in feudalism those who made him an exile. 

The peasant is thus no more sanctified than the baron 

When in fresh fields the baronial conditions invite him. 

The opportunist is god in his opportunity, 

Whether he come from mud-cabin or castle imperial. 

His syndicate first makes the money, and then makes the morals. 

This canto, though overladen with facts, will weigh nothing. 

248 



269. 

If you federate, Britons, be warned from the permanent menace 

Krom which even the hottest of parties are strenuous in warning-, 

The jeehaw between local centres and centralization, 

Presuming the rule of the fitless and jealousy rampant. 

Federate on sense though you plan it for three generations. 

To be quick is to doubt importance unless in mobilization. 

Twenty years of resolute government said the Marquis ; 

Forty years of Tammany ought to confirm the conviction. 

Despotism produces martyrs because it requires them. 

Liberty is too glad and monotonous to need heroes 

Or great men of any breed : so flat and so happy 

That a clown may run an electorate and govern a city. 

If we be not mere planters of hostage we must federate the forces 

For instant convergence when menace appears ; any menace. 

Our Empire is something to cherish or something to laugh at. 

All parts must defend any one, or go off in their own parts. 

If a third of all human beings be subjects of Britain, 

We should furnish a third of the forces required to defend them 

Both ashore and afloat ; for we live by either power or favor. 

Never accept proposition to limit our armament 

Unless limitations of others be equally genuine ! 

All nations but one scheme to lessen our naval efificiency. 

And our underestimate, historic and chronic. 

Of the enemy, fairly shone like the sun in South Africa. 

Some day it will cost us an empire from sunrise to sunset. 

270 

Land and water were trackless when Britain began to make turnpikes. 
She was the first to 'pike the seas ; is still first in that function, 
And alone in maintaining those 'pikes without toll for all flagdom. 
Yet this honor, high, radiant, impartial, unique, invites envy 
From some who eat of its profits though they could not sustain it ; 
Who elsewhere accept its advantage while working against it, 

249 



The asp of covetonsness at the bosom of hospitahty. 

If none will aid in this duty, will some one guarantee us 

That at least we be not assailed for upholding the general liberty ? 

If so, it will grow tmtil none shall desire to assault it ; 

So distributive of its riches to every participant 

That the ass who would kick it again would kick his own cornbin. 

271. 

Compromise is the rodent of all constitutions 

And certain to gnaw in the epoch of sectional hunger. 

A party dwells with us both intent on promoting that appetite, 

The instinct thereto being founded in ethnics, and chronic, 

And to be neutralized only by letting them know that you know them, 

And that you will boycott their game whenever played in your politics. 

But you who have dotted the oceans with landfalls of friendship, 

Briton, sailor yourself bearing amity for all sailors. 

While you maintain the high peerage of all equal freemen 

A.nother is vigilant to take you at disadvantage, 

Though his quondam friend has adopted your role among peoples ; 

One who follows you 'round the globe and shares in your grainbins, 

Not a builder himself, but unproud and a fortunate tenant, 

Having the law on the tenant's side, not on the landlord's ; 

Eager himself for the task for which he denounces the Briton ; 

Fault-finding, eating, grasping, drinking, dwelling and scheming; 

Willing to outwit the gods had he wit enough to attract them ; 

From fathers whose love of misrule, as they tell, provoked centuries of hun 

ger, 
Furnishing foreign towns with policemen five to the ton-weight, 
The best-fed looking men on the globe by the law of the average, 
These sons of twenty generations of those who ate nothing ; 
Street preachers of agitation hopeless of all things save penny-pay ; 
Corner-Hercules each, arrester of centaurs of tramcar. 
But too splendidly uniformed for service more grievous ; 
No more than the Hebrew disposed to subdue the waste-places 
By dint of axe and fire and privation and peril ; 

250 



One willing to win at seven-up what your courage shall conquer, 
But not, as the Hebrew is, faithful to free state and conscience : 
Such in part is he of long sweat in deranging the amenities 
Of the nations which beat him at last by exploiting his purpose. 
Is starvation really better than beef for policemen. 
Or as ancestral condition for making them heavy ? 



271^ 

In a work designed to stimulate tnought, not exhaust it, 
And to put on a topic new phases instead of dessicating it, 
Whatever of comedy, satire, or sarcasm or irony 
Be employed, should be free of bitterness and dogmatics. 
Thereby suscitating interest, attention, analysis. 
And leading the reader up to a larger acquaintance 
And clearer opinion or judgment concerning such topic ; 
His own opinion or judgment, not another forced on him ; 
One like that of Mr. Archbold on uses of riches, 
But not by the usage of rich men ; or, as I called it. 
The Advantages of Blunt, at the dinner of Trowbridge. 
This is not the way of the editor, he being a partisan, 
And often for interest, in spite of his own elightenment ; 
In which, of course, he is merely a common politician, 
Whatever his abstract acquirements, or his merits in concrete. 
When young I was thrice dismissed for simple wjde-mindedness, 
And once, for an innocent joke on the comic editor 
Who was blown ofif on one of his jokes till he grew incoherent. 
And excited a laughter that turned his own fun into anger. 
The funnyman's chair was not ample enough for my sitting. 
But of all the convictions of youth which age slowly mummifies, 
Mine the least mummified is the need of large-mindedness 
And of not offending receptiveness by ironies, 
Since intellectual receptiveness may grow to aggressiveaess 
In high spirits aroused by more varied infusion of subject ; 
And these the world needs, in the genuine, not in the charlatan. 

251 



272. 

Imperfect as liberty is, it is still worth the saving, 

Because, if lost, we should all be slaves irretrievably, 

Or begin the struggle anew as with Johnny Plantagcnet. 

We have earned something worthy, and gambled on some things worth 

nothing. 
Let us keep on earning, eliminating, and avoidmg 
Loss, and the makeshifts that mar systems suddenly founded. 
Now, having decided it worthy, how shall we save it? 
Simply by lasting alliance of all who speak English 
Around the globe ; either that or some grand misalliance 
Conserving a status quo among races degenerate 
Till liberty shall retire in disgust from all peoples 
And military autocracy shackle ex-freemen, 
Or monetary autocracy buy up both systems. 

273- 

i see a money-autocracy menacing freedom. 

Except that of syndicate action by tariff and excise, 

In itself a free autocrat merit, in midst of a people 

Of continental pretensions to virtues and riches. 

This menace will be explained away ; every peof>le 

Has weaknesses ; one is so great for orations that freedom 

V/ill be lost in some democrat's speech explaining its permanence. 

In this I speak less for myself than the late Mr. Gresham. 

274. 

If patriotism be a secular faith in alliance 

With that which seats you with God after death, why not fill it 
With the sweetness and light of the Sunday-school and Saint Matthew, 
And quit making the temple a school of political hatred ? 
Can you serve God on Sundays and butcher your brothers all weekdays 
And recombine with self-respect the next Sabbath ? 

252 



If you can, where are Moses and Jesus as dominant prophets? 

Is the moral law as to policy a quantity minus ? 

Mr. Lincoln said it seemed strange that the God of the Federals 

And Confederates should be the same, yet so dii^erently prayed to. 

The day of religious war is gone, says the optimist. 

Patriotic war is religious war in a measure ; 

The same argument sustains the one as the other 

When you see the fact as it is and not as a casuist. 

Can you placate the god of destruction while praying the Saviour ? 



274i 

After you have grown old, the generation succeeding 

Takes the country out of your hands, substituting new patriotism 

Which seems treason to you as compared with that of your tvv'cnties. 

Yet the waterlogged patria still floats, always floundering, not foundering ; 

Which shows patriotism up a vagary strictly, a fashion ; 

A fad, a generation's whim, not a sublimate passion ; 

Something with nothing that made Cincinnatus illustrious. 

Except the old-timers, still Bhoys of the Bowery at ninety, 

None of the elder men wished to assault Spain in Cuba, 

But young men, bohemians, and gents of the cross-roads and corners. 



275- 

The average is not of the highest things nor the lowest 

But of the even medium, inclusive, exclusive 

Of what it can reach and it cannot ; and contemptuous 

And brutal sometimes ; but proclaiming itself as the average. 

No apology to things higher or finer ; they are recognized, 

But if they decline to assimilate they are trampled. 

Let us reckon with this as a law and quit quarrelling with it. 

The democrat says that his law is the right of the average 

And its force in his fixt institutions ; but let him be careful 

That an oligarchic minority shall not grasp both of them 

253 



And sell out to a syndicate, and then do it over again ! 
If principles must live, safeguards have correlative value. 

276. 

Let us quit the study of Dardan for that of Manhattan, 

Where the dew-steps and snow-tracks of pioneer Saxon are hunted 

By sunlight and searchlight by one never tired of proclaiming 

His superiority, yet who never founded a colony ; 

A wageman only, this party, on Saxon-rigked capital, 

Yet a puissant tongue-tripper in colony or ex-colony. 

Politics are easy there, and this party tripped into it 

By opening a mine of sympathy and working it so incessantly 

That its shareholders lost the sense of international comity 

And duty, and made a religion of interference. 

For this mine-man is nothing if not a victim of conscience ; 

Kis own, to be sure, which prohibits respect for another's. 

But even insouciant Manhattan at length looks into him 

Who sailed thither by millions to crowd out the sons of the builders 

Of the Saxon madhouse of freedom, and make a hotel of it 

For receiving as guests of himself the manorial inheritors. 

Strange that he never led in the two kinds of freedom. 

Why has he always followed and tried to lay hold of them ? 

He has captured Tammany, an institution of charity, 

Which, in the food and drink sense, supports him by thousands. 

This he calls proof of his genius ; so it is ; proof it is 

Of the old tribal power to live at the cost of one's neighbors. 

But the world draws both fun and a moral from this situation. 

2764. 

Like a later and older John of Gaunt, I see lerna 
Kicking harder than ever against the goads, yet dependent 
Forever, and more than ever, on Anglia, being sandwiched 
Between sections of British Empire to westward and eastward 
Till circumference is lost in circumference, and emotional orators 

254 



And exiles of all degrees are like alien fish stranded 

On foreign shores they may fertilize but not sweeten. 

And all this by reason of marvelous moral alliance 

Which grew from a Spanish war, and for open doors everywhere. 

This canto is of West Point ; not the Point, but the principle, 
And was written when Cuba was Spanish, with war far off and latent, 
And before committees set the empires to criticise democracy. 
There should exist a continuous basis of leadership. 
Chicago said no, and to pay for it hanged a few anarchists. 
Those who do not believe in it now will yet see its necessity. 
If this prophecy should fail it is perfectly harmless. 
To hear the other man's side is part of My Comedy, 
As universal dividends are of My Syndicate. 
The volunteer for a war is often a citizen 

Broken in prospects ; a bummer, in fact ; not always, but often ; 
And some one is urgently needed with courage to say this ; 
Because the military defence of an empire 

Calls for much better men than those willing to forage in others. 
No ofificer not a gentleman, is a grand motto. 
Giving courage and comfort to men who enlist where it governs. 
Volunteer system has proved that it does not insure this. 
Do not rely on the chaos of non-preparation 
Because you outnumber by four to one some other fellows. 
Some day the proportion may be on the side of those others. 
And then you may cut out some work that may do you some credit ; 
But to do this successfully you depend on West Pointers. 
This canto is not addressed alone to Americans. 
West Point principle is weaker with them than with Britons, 
But not strong enough with either ; look at some others. 
The English are very good men, have been always good fighters, 
Good mercenaries, as they were with Hawkwood and Chandos, 
But what chance have they now, 'gainst an army hke that of the Germans*' 
Faith in hordes insures not the man of manifest destiny. 

255 



The next Wellington may again be the son of a noble. 
The plebeian is equally gifted, but has no monopoly. 

No preach in this pamphlet ; merely suggestion and question. 

I, as aristo. have no right to injure your sensitiveness ; 

Equally A\Tong would you be to crowd your pleb self on my notice ; 

Or if this otiend. make me pleb. and you be aristo. 

WTiy inflict on the world intermittent warwhoop of envy ? 

Proletariat oblige de meme que noblesse, si on y pense bien. 

La fiene personelle depasse autre orgueil : pensez encore-la ! 

Nature did not limit the wise or the fools to one order. 

But I pray you. corral the able and brave in one order, 

Men as ready to die as to win in ihe race to be able 

In democracy or socialism even as in monarchy, 

As the crew that sank the Merrimac proved at Santiago. 

Change not the name of the ring : let it still be aristo. 

Mere prejudice 'gainst a word shall not scare a noble derivative 

.WTiich has fought its way up with demos, keeping abreast of it. 

But Colonel Jack Battleship does not belong in this order, 

And will cost you more than ten others unless you suppress him. 

279. 

"What is a noble ? The leader posed highest by nature. 

As his ancestor was when the noble Avas not the more needed ; 

Aristocrat, autocrat, democrat : ruler, not liar. 

His forepops aided or bearded the king as they listed. 

Each first among equals where nothing but chance made one greater. 

The only man in the battle who dared not be timid. 

The only man in a shipwTeck who dared not survive it. 

Like Tryon, afraid of nothing except to be frightened. 

If an order maintain what is worthy, rejecting the other. 

Adding the moral force of continuity- to progress and purpose. 

And be recognized by the state as a part of its \-alue, 



Such order is noble and useful, despite the objections 

Of envy, and the sneers of those from its circles excluded. 

Indeed, if the systems ostentatious of plainness 

Could secure with their peoples its practice from choice, as they do not 

When choice is presented, my faith in them would be fortified. 

And if the ignoble went not with the fling- at the noble. 

This is serious writing for one without serious pretension. 

But the barnacle of the bogus adheres to both systems, 

Thus presenting a case of excrescence thriving on merit. 

A Court has some points which I hope Britain never will sacrifice. 

I insist on this hope from prolonged obsen-ation all-sided. 

I am not approving the sons of proud flesh, nor the swellmob. 

Patrician may build where he can, and so may plebeian. 

But neither shall injure the structure, as such, of the other. 

None is better for not being the best, and no order decrees this 

To its members ; each does its best for the best, and that ends it. 

Impartiality cuts little figure in studying this topic : 

That is why I, democratic from Plato, risk seeming snobbish. 

280. 

Not principles change, although eras may modify living. 

Let his vices alone ; yours v.ere bigger if you could afford them. 

Laden with mesquinite. coarse, sordid, unblooded. 

The temptations of fortune are sometimes ven*- unfortunate. 

Your poverty, had you been wise, should have hidden your meanness. 

Bad enough to be mean, the effect is doubled by poverty. 

Resistance costs nothing to him without means for a riot. 

The prophet is not without honor save in his country 

And ancestral chateau and his party : why do these slight him ? 

Because the opposition has more who are better. 

The rich are not mean : when they seem so they are but ex-centric. 

Lift inferiors up to superiors and so make us equals. 

But do not knock Washington doA^-n to the Tammany level, 

Neither set him up sponsor for tenets unknown to his epoch ; 

Indeed, could he have foreseen the apocalypse of Lexow, 



Or of Alazet, I guess he might not have cast his first uniform. 

Things are as they work, not as partisan revehy bhifTs them. 

I (iisHke without blaming bhit^ ; it provokes me to buffing. 

I therefore bufif him who bhif^ed on suspending the steerage 

For a term because of unfitness of immigration. 

In such case is the patriot at the open door or the other door? 

Good citizens if they enter ; unfit if they do not. 

The same men ; but the door, not the men. is what it depends on. 

Heave anthropology over the side of the vessel 

And whoop up the door as it stands and shut out burning questions. 

Your end being to keep the door open for you to the senate. 

A senator may be little or great, or be accident, 

Whether Webster or he who would shut up the door of third cabin. 

But, in senate or out, a magnanimous man and benignant 

Is an open-door fellow while making the weather to suit it. 

The whole world may give up the open-door cult, but I never! 

:28i. 

If you wish to do wrong, become crank and charge it to conscience. 
If you find your delight in dominion of some of the passions, 
Say that something or somebody stands in your v»-ay of expansion. 
If the wrong shall be monstrous the crank will become an apostle 
When by any species of juggle he get it accepted. 
A\'e must keep due proportion between the disciple and topic. 
Investigate nothing, but simply be slave of your notion. 
The more slave the more sure you are to be wholly conscientious. 
I\Iarcus Brutus. Wilkes Booth and Guiteau were all drunken with con- 
science. 
The Leonidas band was exterminated on duty. 
Timolcon too was a tough for the \o\e of the masses. 
Pasting fratricide to his conscience ; give me Timophanes. 
Divorce has a place in the conscience that governs expansion 
Of hearts that can love more than one ; more than one at a time, too. 
If punished, you are a martyr instead of a criminal. 
Punition is only an item of compensation ; 

258 



It comes, when you need it, as simple reward of demerit. 

How easily age passes age in the mental ascension 

From Moses' to that of the rule for evading commandments. 



282. 



All is relative ? Yes. but everything has its basis 

In fact ; and relation is more or less of an mference ; 

It depends on the thing and the mind ; sometimes on both mingled. 

Hades is hard, though some dwellers there contradict Dante. 

My spiritualist hunted in vain for the Count Ugolmo. 

And Francesca da Rimini vowed him she was not unhappy. 

In self-defence they feel bound to find points in its favor, 

Though I think Ugolino simply refused to be interviewed, 

It being sweeter to gnaw his foe's head than to answer a boojum. 

No offence to the principle of psychical research intended. 

The incommunicable flash of the psychical radiance. 

Rare, and to few vouchsafed, carries presage of wisdom 

Richer than syndicate treasures, and not to be doubted 

Because intangible yet to the lone and unwilling ; 

A presage luminous of atonement wherein the believers 

Find the burden lightened, though not yet be the day of deliverance. 

However, another psychical influence detained me. 

But we need not go to the devil to find such obliquity . 

Some who live in the Tammany bailiwick really defend it. 

There it is that necessity is the Muse of Invention, 

To me nothing finer in oratory nor letters 

Than a stump speech, every sentence with epigram pointed. 

No matter about the matter, if epigrammatic. 

Even falsehood is true in the politics of the partisan 

If by it he carry his vote ; we must govern by party. 

For pure fun I prefer the stump speeches that lie about Britain 

Made by emigrants voluntary who call themselves exiles, 

And call at my basement door for the pence of my servants. 

They like not the lion but whoop up the tiger, I notice. 

259 



Cervantes he was who laughed chivalry out of existence. 

Near three centuries later a Don Keyhotay of nations 

Knocks the land of Cervantes out of colonial possessions ; 

Comes from Spanish-discovered territory to do it. 

After this there can be nothing- unexpected in irony. 

My hardest blows have less punch than the same of Cervantes, 

Though this age would call itself larger and freer and stronger ; 

Better able to take as to give; this great prize fighter's epoch 

Wherein scarce a man is so honest as poor Don Ouijote, 

fVnd who, by a pint to a barrel, produces more laughter ; 

The Don of three hundred years to-day has more fun in him 

Than all clowns by profession and others grouped as his rivals, 

Exceptes les exiles de ressort qui se moquent de Manhattan. 

Church and chivalry were as strong in the age of Lepanto 

As patriotism and lust of gain in the age of protection 

And free trade ; with our superstitions not more respectable. 

I desire to bestow on them some of the shot of Lepanto 

Where Don Juan de Austria grew famous and staid so till Dewey 

Beat a flagship bearing his name without lessening his glory. 

You will hear mine again o'er the gulf as they shiver new timbers. 

284. 

Forget not the thanks due the German bespeaker of Britain, 
Of European renown in the love of the peoples : 
The genius and steel Schiller gave you have not lost their tempers. 
Ye who smashed the Armada fresh from smashing giaour at Lepanto, 
Though you sometimes hesitate fatally to assert them. 
Your slow firmness and strength invite imposition ; be quicker ! 
If I had not observed and studied this out I were silent. 
Are you hanging together in fractions or strong as a unit ? 
Do not wait, ere you speak, till your foe has attained his ambition. 
That is the point where he laughs and says fight is not in you. 
As William the Sudden remarked in his raid on the Transvaal. 

2G0 



\No Siam, no Fashoda ; the latter was merely a sequence. 
So slow yon are, what you seek to prevent is accomplished, 
And you are put off with an explanation ironic. 
His purpose became a fait accompli unexpected, 

Monsieur smiles ; and tail of old leo once more has been trifled with. " 
What do you think about Captain Mahan on Lord Nelson ? 
God grant I be wrong, but dawdling and drifting seem dangerous. 
You can mobilize the Fleet in a jifify, Britannia ; 
But the Army requires several jif^es, as also the Foreign Office, 
In a nation slow enough to be solemnly comic, 
Building ships and preaching to save the expense of an army. 
What cares he who takes what he likes for the British dignity ? 
Moral tone and too-lateness make the paradise and the victim 
■Of rhetoricians in competition with statesmen. 

Will you send enough men in first instance, next time, to a Transvaal? 
Do you represent fittest survival by outliving envy ? 
You will be suddenly ordered away from Gibraltar 
Some day, and from Egypt and A'lalta, by new combination. 
Will you then strike or quit ? To recover respect, stop the lectures. 
Give Socotra to the States for free seas and free Suez, 
For they seem to do more with a wink than you do with a cruiser. 
Their alliance will require some initiative as well as some battleships, 
And you will stay great and respected in ratio to courage. 
Organization onl}- we lack to make us invincible. 
And so acknowledged by every bluffer and bully. 
Never resurrect peace-at-any-price doctrine or Premier ! 

285. 

A wooden horse is a ship of the land full of soldiers 
Intended to sail by his legs where the foe least expects him, 
Or to be trundled on wheels for the merrier deceit of the garrison. 
And so may the father of trades send a British Epeiis 
With numerous aids to construct wooden horses for soldiers. 
'The foe v/ould think they were empty and lose himself laughing 
At a nineteenth-century experiment torn from the Iliad. 

261 



However, his laughter would change to a puritaji seriousness 

Wlien he found our clown-guiiboat ashore a real warful equipment; 

That the old Greek freak of the enterprise gave it the dang;er 

P.ut the horse in this canto is not a device of Lord Wolseley 

Or Roberts or Kitchener, but mine for symposian Ministry. 

It is much more honest, honorable and more military 

Than tlie phantom scheme of defence whereby Gordon perished. 

Fashodd would have been a complete success with those schemers. 

286. 

You may be a poet, a prosist, a scholar, a rhetor, 

]May infuse fear or love, even as Jupiter Tonans or A mans ; 

May broaden your mind a few miles beyond the horizon ; 

Men may trample each other to death to absorb your oration ; 

You may be more sorts of great mind if you care to select them. 

Yet the minus sign may express 3-our success as a statesman. 

Mere passion to do something- new does not make you highminded. 

Lofty brooding on self-deception makes not a patriot. 

O give ear to a new old man. thou vast British Klectorate! 

Cassandra had one defect only ; no one would listen 

Even to the prophet-maiden and princess royal of Ilion 

"Who in foregrasp carried, and died 'with, a stirpes denying; 

And Schiller had died before ^^'aterloo or Trafalgar, 

Though well proven in both our genius and steel of his dictum. 

But eat, drink and be merry, my Britons, and stone your old wailer ! 

No short commons while foodships are missed by the enemies' cruisers. 

The last one uncaptured may enter the dock just at midnight. 

So to-morrow we die. but let us be drunk for the sunrise ! 

28S. 

It is a contretemps stubborn when patriot or other 
Imposes himself on mankind as a permanent fetich. 

262 



He forestalls by inflated renown a good part of the coming 

And spreads himself over the space due some other fine fellow. 

His vaticination is short in length, height and expansion. 

He would steer a high course in the Argo Navis of knowledge. 

But not through all seas can he govern the wheel of Canoptrs, 

And the year of his deed is the port where he finds his successor. 

To whom he ought to resign as to Jason the Greater, 

This star-sailor broke of the hope that he captained the future. 

He was brilliant and grand while he lived, but not up to the future. 

As you are not brilliant and grand for the future till called there. 

Intellectual emancipation is what is first needed. 

And the champion of wholly free mind is the only true prophet. 

Of the mind free to sail from finality on to finality, 

Provided such mind be big enough not to be wrecked by him. 

So that nations may still be unfortunate in good idols, 

Idols good in and for themselves with a people mistaken. 

Judicious self-control in the sculpture of metaphor 

Cuts a silent figure of speech loud for him who employs it. 

It is amusing to twitter concerning the obvious. 

And I sometimes make fun of my premises and my logic. 

Since Solomon lilyfied did not love fun as I love it. 

I care not for form, but I must have the substance, and plenty ; 

And states, as at present constructed, are full of the comic. 

289. 

Palabras fatidicas son las mismas en todo lenguaje, 
Or the words of flame shine forever the same in all speeches. 
And above age or sex, as we know by Tiresias and Manto. 
Free from your rage he whose rage was expended on youthfields ; 
Less clouded the horoscope cast by the seer at the starfields 
Like the Tithonus of a gift from, a richer Aurora, 
From a psychical Eos afar from the range of the sophist ; 
Not with blood of the boy, but with ichor of ripeness and contact, 

263 



Partaking the virtue and lustre of what he approaches 

Fixt ever at home in the splendor recurrent of nightfall, 

Unvvrenched from their zenith, unwrecked in the nadir of statecraft ; 

Ecstasy of a vision whitening itself into sunlight, 

Brightening itself into sunrise of radius expanded 

Whose beams shall more brilliantly burnish the belt of dominion 

Of a v/orld-realm having always a moment of sunrise 

With duties and causes which seek the imperial meridian, 

290. 

Psychical foresight and insight sublime and illumine 

Poet-prophet, him of deep love, and far scan, and high vision ; 

But woe unto him who cries woe to the sins of his epoch ! 

Though for him all the tongues roll the syllables even as one tongue, 

Though his intuition may penetrate every deception 

And his honesty be the means of reclaiming his era. 

Envy beats admiration at last and he dies an old curio ; 

A circumstance which I regard as discouraging deeply 

Those sole heirs of the mind equipt for such duty and destiny. 

291. 

I am old as an heir of a Boadicea enlightened 

And was young 'round a globe in the ancient Queen's era undreamt of; 
A Britannic son of a priestess benignant of fortune, 
Of a mother who lived and died happy, foretelling of greatness 
And not of the woe and the fall of her housegods and country ; 
Of a pantheon of homely virtues supplanting the temple 
Of a faith unfelt and of errant gods and their kindred. 
My faith is as that of a woman with scene-grasp viatic, 
Heir of part of the psychical radiance diffused by Cassandra, 
Truly and vainly diffused over legions unwilling : 
My conviction as that of Laocoon free from the serpents, 
Free at the altar of those later builders and better than Trojan, 
Of high-priest whose duty may be to rebuild a religion, 

264 



The Cardinal of Neptune in prayer with his heritors, 
Adjuring them to hold fast to the trust of the heirloom, 
Long fervor and glory of mission evoking their rapture, 
The Minister of the Seas reattesting the will of Poseidon, 
Forbidding Jason crews to seek golden fleece in our 'tweendecks. 

292, 

Do my States look on Irish grievances as a comedy 

Of political agitators acting ihem out for a living? 

Mr. Blaine deemed them tragic, and of so transcendent importance 

That he naturalized a man expressly to care for them ; 

At least so the caricaturists averred ; I aver nothing. 

Mr. Blaine had to get there, but did not ; and Mr. McKinley 

Did get there, and made St. Patrick's friend Choate an Ambassador. 

Centuries of hatred and wrong take a queer form of protest. 

Mr. Joseph Harmonicum Choate twice suggested the question 

Why Irishmen always migrate to Englishmen's countries 

And why Romanists ever seek homes in the Protestant centres, 

Though non-papist and Briton reciprocate never the honor. 

Manhattan is crowded with Irishmen writing Americanism 

So intently that even Carl Schurz would scarce dare dispute them. 

Great man, foreign-born, too, and almost the best of Americans, 

Whose seventieth birthday Manhattan made publicly notable. 

Will some bubbling Celt of the inkbottle answer Harmonicum? 

Shure here is a chance to apply the shillelagh of logic ! 

Choate and I might be crushed not by breaking our heads but our arguments. 

Will ye ever have all ye want, or go back if ye have it? 

For to two ye cannot be true, whether democrats or monarchists ; 

And still l»ss to three, if thereunto be added a pontifex. 

293- 

All commerce expands by the fact of facilitation, 
But facilitation means not naval menace of equals. 
Your earnings may tempt to be corsair your rival defeated, 

265 



But why not be ready to make him ill if he try it? 

Worth his while to rob, worth yours to defend, as I see it. 

This applies to the States, as well as to Britain, in Asia. 

Shall the silver streak of our safety yet prove our destruction 

Through a lazy faith that the streak by itself will defend us 

And frighten all foes from our thirty ungarrisoned outposts ? 

Richer than continent nations, are we less manly with taxes ? 

This is written for any period that brings us a menace. 

'Ninety-Eight taught Potomac Cabinent something of menace, 

Though public pride has private cause for ignoring it. 

Let our electorate awake to our enemies' politics ! 

Let it awaken as unit, not as system of parties. 

An opium dream is a Round Table each for four races 

Till the Arthurs, the knights and the squires shall be sure of our union, 

294. 

In the evolution of national life a great navy 

Follows great commerce by sea, since it cannot precede it 

Unless built expressly to take trade away from another. 

This would cost so much, no commercial profit could pay for it. 

Leaving him from whom you took it too poor to buy anything ! 

This accords with economy taught in Poor Richard's Almanac ; 

Other economy would accord with Richard's Poor Almanac, 

Poor Dick's countrymen have grown rich, but bv earnmg, not by organizing; 

A planetary raid on the commerce of nations. 

The purpose of oceans is not to make sections of empire, 

Neither to separate continents nor segregate peoples. 

But rather for fish-food, and trade, and the high sport of yachting. 

Let agitators turn cabmen, or do something honest. 

For the tendency of events is to throttle their policies ; ' 

And we, unto whom the creative scope is occult yet, 

Should seek to obey the behest, not derange its unfolding. 

295. 
We have thousands of sailors in posse outside of Europe, 
And allies, if we show German pluck ; but the contrast 

266 



Is greater than we admit ; we who once were so plucky. 

Is it an instance of Exeter Hall against courage ? 

We tried a new friend who would laugh us away out of Malta ; 

He would do it with sweetness and light and contempt and diplomacy; 

He hit the Marquis a blow underhanded from China ; 

And we should retire with dignity. There is nothing like dignity. 

Though a Frenchman once told me 'tis merely vivacity's absence, 

And thus fitting the English character to perfection. 

296. 

No irony in any patriotism and religion 
But shall Moslem yet carry the Cross for political freedom, 
Or the sons of the Crescent shame those of the Cross into courage? 
In the last Turkish war the Greek gave us little encouragement. 
Strange query ! but some Christians are so intense in their selfishness 
So nationally narrow and tyrannous, that it may become necessary 
To beat them ; and the Crescent may furnish some of the numbers 
To redeem liberty whether for Cross or for Crescent. 
Sad possibility this ; but old men are farseeing, 

Having quit the youth-practice of horn-tossing problems to solve them. 
Or will those gone insane with the surfeit of license recover? 
S' il y a qui veut rompre la paix, honi soit a celui. 
But Great Britain is not a worm, for the foot of ambition, 
As the world learned at Fashoda and Oman, and the Transvaal. 
But our solemnly comical placemen svmposian misled the world. 
Break Britain, impoverish the others ; whom will you trade with? 
The poorhouse is always the leanest and cheapest consumer. 
Whether ) ou be the owner thereof or an inmate. 
Not a serpent coiling to crush with a claim surreptitious 
Is Britain ; nor can she be spared from the list of great nations. 
All the world is a larger market than any one part of it. 
And in free competition falls to the one who should have it. 
No section can be permanently bolstered as market; you will learn this. 
Nor can you get rich by finding fault with the markets. 
Silver-wall yourselves ofif and be happy ; but leave us our senses. 

267 



You remember, I trust, that this booklet is all for amusement. 
Totum reductum ad absurdum is mine only motto; 
Totum is there for solution and reconstitution. 
This is not irony ; think it out to a finish. 

Half a million more soldiers and never a sneer at Great Britain, 
But a general call for disarmament, France calling loudliest. 
We are willing to take if we must a fair beating from equal ; 
That is, we do cheerfully welcome impossible prospect. 
But we who have learned to make forts of the solar pavilions 
Need the soldiers aloft and alow, as we have on the ocean. 
We invite the tricks and bad temper of gueuse and of bully 
By going unarmed or half-armed ; there is only one remedy. 
Let Great Britain arm till all Europe agree to disarmament. 

2<)8. 

Or is Britain the island of chance, become great by the ocean 
While our latent superiors were short of an ocean to help them ? 
Do they work past our flank while we try to outflank by debating? 
Once we lost by debate a vast empire ; shall we let slide another ? 
Our arm.y is minimum to theirs ; shall they beat us on navy ? 
I inquire for all time, not the days of the statesmen symposian, 
Who yet again may talk themselves into election. 
This is not written of any administration. 
All parties are one to me for my purpose with nations, 
With any system, democratic, autocratic, social. 

Except that where the figures of speech mark the pathway of desolation ; 
My purpose being universal distribution of dividends 
On labor capitalized on terms equal with capital. 
This is the dream of my Twentieth Century Syndicate, 
Which, if not realized, will stay beautiful with that of Torquato ; 
Tasso and Thomson joined in two different visions, 
Each having no fault for the concrete except too much beauty. 

268 



299- 

No one can take the place in the world of Great Britain. 

None would know what to do with it after he got it 

By lack of equipment ethnic and experimental, 

That is, of experience. I am a patriot on ethnics. 

The States will come on in time, v/hen they get through disputing 

Among themselves their relation to planetary duty. 

Some affect to debate in the States what blood there predominates. 

Let such read the opening of Blaine to the Senate on Garfield ; 

Of Blaine, the least sane of those inimical to our duties. 

Institutions and flags are for children of eight years or eighty. 

For ethnical quality always preserves what is good in them, 

And no good ethnic quality ever surrenders to fetich. 

Airound the planet the empire of trade on the trade winds 

And on the weather gauge was built by the Briton, 

And it will stay with his blood through all flagdom and oceans! 

300. 

There went a fine burst of patriotism for two nations. 

But its realization depends on some sort of alliance 

Which shall not give manifest destiny to some other keeping. 

Scarce anything is more comic than manifest destiny, 

The elusive clown in the hippodrome of the nations, 

Buflfo porter of open door, burlesque chartist of spheres of influence. 

Final moralist of staying within your dominion. 

But what is your dominion ? One you may share with all others. 

Or one from which another may drive all the others 

Because no one will second a leader for common shareholding? 

Perhaps manifest destiny means absence of moral courage, 

Or jealousy of it, or a mind too small to perceive it, 

So th'at what should be manifest jointly is severally wasted. 

301. 

Are our resources real or posed on conceit niixt with rhetoric ? 
Shall the poorest of nations excel all the rich ones in arming 

269 



■Till mere bankruptcy determine which is the greatest ? 

Our sodden sense of natural superiority 

Persuades not our foes, neither arms us by land nor by water. 

Exiles at Manhattan say we are chumps, great by favor, 

Keeping touch of our empire by luck and forbearance of others, 

Blind sons of the opportune who fell into fortune, 

Who did not talk ourselves into fortune, as they did, 

And that those who fall or work into fortune are chump-races 

Void of the two-edged tongue which cuts ransom from property. 

Well, we would not succeed if we could on the terms of the exiles, 

And they only succeed on their terms by local majority, 

Not by examples which make nations dominant and envied ! 

But we make no silly pretension to undying succession. 

Where we cease to deserve the exiles begin, and will eat us 

Imperially v/hen we cease ; but that is yet distant. 

The menace of 'Ninety-Three may recur just for state-fun, 

7\nd Fashoda or Oman may be elsewhere repeated. 

I am English from Egbert, but faith in my race is much twisted. 

When told to get out of Siam we appealed unto Moses, 

Though Moses had had no experience so far to the eastward ; 

We, imperial, with populations scarce second to China. 

Was that done like Cassius, or Strongbow, or Marlboro', or Chatham, 

Or Pitt's friends, who held fast till Europe made Boney an outlaw ? 

Shall some hydrostatic paradox at the sunrise. 

As a water-wedge at Tenasserim, split us open ? 

Our decks should suggest us pontoons to all parts oi the Empire. 

n^is would influence the exiles to hiring more halls to defeat us. 

To contrive and control more deceit by vociferous minorities. 

If the taxpayers deem empire too dear on the present conditions, 

Let them devise cheaper means of feeding three kingdoms. 

Knowing that all we give up is perdu to our commerce. 

As well as the honor and pride we divide with our fellows. 

302. 

T'^orgot are De Grasse and Brueyes ; yet they set us sternchases 
Which, when ended, brought Rodney and Hood out, and Nelson immortal 

270 



But from France we have had a long series of models for sternchase, 

And De Grasse and Brueyes may be vindicate yet by their strategy. 

Therefore let us build cruisers for engines, not battlers for cannons. 

Craft that can beat all they meet not at fighting but running, 

In accord with the fad not of seamen but lubbers and builders. 

Let us supplant shot and shell by steam pressure colossal. 

Thus deciding ocean supremacy simply by racing 

And winning it by being quickest to get out of danger, 

Dressing ship from bowsprit to mizzen for swiftness victorious, 

For our triumphant velocity in declining. 

Thus shall we add the De Grasse class to that of Lord Duncan. 

303- 

Permit not yourself to get old too early ; prematurity 
Comes not necessarily of dissipation, nor of study. 
Nor even of troubles prolonged, but of simple surrender ; 
Going under and not going through, as Clint Roudcbush calls it ; 
And for this, forces outside yourself may despitefully use you. 
If at fifty you have not accumulated a million, 

Your quondam and quasi friends will predict you the poorhouse. 
The dullness and insult of this prediction anticipate 
The sullen years, brighter and gentler with those either friendless 
Or having active enemies only, who are superior 
To those who merely maunder as friends ; those whose weaknesses 
Are inimical amid their affection. The idealist 
Who lives with a nature not ours is the apostle of friendship. 
The realist says it belongs to chance, not to principle, 
For he knows the friends who crowded the friendship out of him. 
The conqueror has it while mind, sword and muscle all swing for him. 
The proper moment for dropping is the rule which skips the exceptions. 
Les adieux de Fontainebleau, the chief then being not conqueror, 
Is the most abject tableau in nature, though art filled it 
With affection ; but the subalterns were sordid hypocrites 
To a very gross caput, yet one to whom they owed everything. 
I stood on the old stone blocks and thought it all out there : 

271 



And in youth, as in mitldle age, I vtrifievi the two sides of it 

Fy being the friend, and by lacking him. till I grew happy 

And old in outgrowing its theft of affection, and replacing 

Napoleon betrayed and faithless with Don Quixote and Falstaff, 

Xot for friendship or treachery in either, but for simple good humor. 

As I later desertetl the senate and took to the sand-ring. 

The senator being the actor, the clown the true fellow of nature. 

Thus the higher we g^o the more sordid and lower the friend is. 

So long as heigflit looms fundamentally false in conception. 

^Mcphisto invented tbie tenn to develop a w eakness 

Composed of the hope of reward without service substantial. 

Hypocrisy, cowardice, false promise, absence of sacrifice. 

The exceptions I note prove the subtle grasp of his genius. 

And include what the gods approve, and man excludes from friendship. 



304. 

Manifest destiny makes friends not involving self-sacrifice. 

Or invoh"ing it so as to spare immolation more costly. 

Therefore let the United States go ahead with their Navy ! 

The bigger they make it the better for them as for Britain 

Till opponunism suggest them an ally superior. 

And look well that you fall not off in your Fleet, O my country ! 

Neither one alone can front all : both together can front an\-thing : 

But the moral force of either supporting the other 

Would virtually abolish war. since no retrogression 

Is in their policy, but unlimited spheres of influence 

Free to all. with none excluded, and tariff for revenue only 

The ideal aim not of doctrinaire but of taxpayer 

Wlieresoever taxes are paid, and no place escapes tl;em. 

Neither geological depths nor those of the ocean 

'\\'here a shaft or a ship is sunk or an oyster is planted. 

On the shores of any hemisphere known to cartographers. 

But if the Continent get ahead on the ocean. 

The nations would limit both us and the States on the waters, 



Kcmanrling sca-frcclom once more to the Runnymede status, 
Transforming civilization into a tragedy. 

305. 

There is a distillate in riches that envelops the nature 

Of individuals and nations, pervading it solidly, 

And transforming it whether they will or not; why, we knov,- not. 

Or may know and accept not the knowledge ; but neutralization 

Of the result to the mind of this vapor enwrapping 

May be latent in moral law; if not, it is nowhere, 

And escape from the stational intoxication is hopeless. 

From the a?nanthic ether of new actuation. 

Dedication to noble purpose by men and by nations 

Belongs to the young and the poor, although their devotion 

Is less to seli-purification than to calling attention 

To that which is achieved. But their frugality and energy 

And persistence in morals being rewarded, they turn spendthrifts 

On personal account, commonly within their incomes. 

Of all that rendered them good and great, setting example 

Of egoism for themselves, and of big precept for others 

To go and do likewise ; but never admitting that chances 

Are not with desires coequal, nor even with necessities. 

This is the permanent deadlock point. Exhorting is not supporting. 

Wealthy men cannot support poor men in their virtues. 

Let the poor men get rich for themselves and sustain rich men's virtues. 

Or the vices the wealthy unfolded on quitting their poverty. 

This canto has value only for thinkers impartial. 

Antagonists by profession and hireling defenders, 

While not comprehending, will faithfully misrepresent it. 

306. 

A wonderful man was Dandolo Doge of Venezia. 
lie was an admiral also and mighty victorious ; 
If great age were enfeebling, inadmissible supposition. 
His conquest thereof ought to rank him with Duncan or Dewey, 

273 



For at ninety-four years he captured Constantinople, 

By two hundred and fifty years antedating the Turk there. 

His poHcy was expansion of trade, not contraction, 

BHnd old Dandolo, senex-in-chief of all old men in history. 

Who, if feeble, vanquished his weakness as much as the city. 

Our Old Man was as nothing to him, sovereign, statesman and sailor, 

Who, older and sightless, could still see the interests of Venice. 

If our symposians were just in their views as to sea-states, 

I should consider the British Empire a soap-bubble 

Of longer duration by virtue of soapfat more viscous. 

307- 

Within some long decades there died a great man named Jomini. 
He is in himself to this day a text-book on some subjects. 
He was a magnate high in the service of Russia. \ 

One of his maxims is that no nation of Europe 

Not connected with Europe by land, should have naval preponderance. ■ 
He was afraid, I suppose, of the manifest destiny 
Which a giant fleet could distribute in cargoes assorted 
All over the planet, consigned through ports and doors open, 
Provided five million moujiks could not march on its home-ports. 
By afifable negligence Russian we got a great navy 
Which is a pigmy yet when you think of its duty. 
And which only our friend of the States would desire to see larger. .• 
With one purpose two nations are tacitly allied against it 
Eor reasons neither concealed nor explained by diplomacy. 
This is the dullest alliance since man began bookkeeping. 
We shall not make manifest destiny a present to any one, 
Nor to any two ; were we willing, the States would resent it. 
So I presume we shall go on defying Jomini 
Till every alliance shall bind itself not to assault us. 
While we open a new door per week for all nations equally. 
Moral force ought to carry this proposition to triumph : 
It will, with sufficient army and navy behind it 
And initiative force enough to justify alliance. 

274 



3o8. 

A great people is great alone by its ethnical genius 

As developed from nature and circumstance and location ; 

And when these three form a coalition to favor it 

The destiny of such genius is manifest and irresistible 

If ignorance or apathy let it not slide to some other ; 

That is, it depends for its irresistible quality 

On those who resist new genius to death, the politicians. 

With the brotherhood-bolster the cornerstone of republics, 

These fellows are loud in denial of human fraternity 

So long as they lead not thereto, neither follow to profit. 

Rather give us the Middle Ages again and bull barons, 

If electorates did not rise up by epochs to smash them ! 

If God made you different from me, I respect your identity, 

Though I covet neither that nor your other possessions. 

What was his purpose ? I cannot define, but I see one, 

And believe not in fiscal nor naval device to defeat it. 

Live and let live ; in the end we shall all shout that motto. 

I dififerentiate in behalf of your nature impartial 

When it is, and would burn this pamphlet ere hurting your feelings. 

But I do not believe in continents antagonistic. 

In nations allying by hemispheres and defying. 

Our fathers fought for the world ; shall their sons strive for sections, 

TJndoing their efTorts, reversing the lessons of history ? 

Monarchy is not effete ; you set us a-laughing, 

You joyous boys who follow the plow and discount it, 

A^'^hen you say so ; we have great energy ; study a little. 

Perhaps you formulate restlessness into doctrine 

And push it in unknown spheres, and lo it is patriotism ! 

The fact that rich women from the States marry Britishers not rich 

Means nothing for nor against the life private or national, 

Though it slices off moral support from demos to monos. 

■*Tis an incident merely which brings to you none of their dollars, 

And it does not augment the love of their land for the women 

Who take fortunes out of it ; nothing so envious as demos, 

275 



Especially of those who go thence to be aristocratic. 

Bank not on these wedlocks as bonds in the friendship of nations ! 

On both sides, I admit, they are full of freedom and confidence ; 

But these women constitute an imperceptible minority, 

And you must live with demos to know how majority scorns minority. 

309- 

I warble of sense and equity in this canto. 

Put yourself in my place, put your country in place of my country ; 

Change the names ; paste these lines on your door like a town-meetin' notice ;: 

Or paste them into your hat for its mental affinity. 

And thereon be judge of the equity of my purpose. 

The British flag trade belongs only in part to Our Empire. 

It is more than one half of the surplus industrial of nations 

And belongs to the nations by shares both in trust and in transit 

Through the Cheapsides and Strands we have built for all men on all oceans,. 

And it would belong to you equally had you built them. 

If we lose it the loss will be natural, like the trade loss of Venice. 

It cannot be kept, neither captured, by force at a profit, 

And nature would give it again to who best should deserve it ; 

And therefore, whether we win or lose in the ultimate, 

I recommend that nature be not interfered with. 

310. 

The champion saint of beatification is Felix. 
I modestly favor the good I have seen in democracy, 

And would favor it with trumpet and drum, could that spread its good things,. 
Pulverization of the monarchical snob being one of them. 
But of its absolutism I seek circumscription; 
And could I for that do what Voltaire did for it in monarchy, 
Saint Felix would ofifer me his aureole in the galaxy. 
Stepping down to the ring of the laymen as saint superseded. 
I am humbly aware on this theme of my lack of importance. 
Yet might I contribute a hint to augment your importance. 

276 



Would you be product polished of society as we know it, 

Full-toned barrister of the fixity where you are topmost, 

fThe Calisthenes of some sacred level inmobile 

In some money-republic where money is not the res publica, 

But pauca for you, and privata, and res syndicata, 

Autocracy being at work in a guise democratic. 

An oligarchy doing the work of the wealthy ? 

You remember that only possessions, or lack of them, classify. 

Or would you be Aristothenes for uplifting 

Such level, like Henry the George as both leader and martyr, 

Single-souled and solely singular for your singleness, 

The sanctified jest of a winning gang of marauders? 

Be patient, ye who say this criticism is not needed! 

My love of the good accentuates my hate of the hideous, 

And no man has the right of content with persistent demerit. 

311- 

There are certain things which no navy can do ; think a little. 

It can clear the line within gun-range on south coast of Cuba, 

But if landlubbers hold all the ports, what the use of the seamen? 

Where is the glory of riding the seas without commerce ? 

In such case a navy would cover them up as with sarcasm, 

Or the seas with contempt much more potent might cover the navy. 

The things which our fleets cannot do must be done by our armies, 

Or by yours, if in the same place you find similar duty. 

Some persons must argue this out; why not you and I do it? 

If the States and Britain decide that no State grasping treaty-ports 

To itself exclusively, shall ever show its flag on the ocean, 

I say ever, no matter how many years it may hold them. 

Till such ports be again remanded to treaty condition, 

Such threat would be puissant of persuasion ; but if the ports-grasper 

Should meet it by prohibiting trade of the vStates and Britain 

With the ports annexed, who then would be ahead ? Two stout navies 

Would neutralize one or more stout armies, all costing millions 

Per diem, and not a ton of commerce to any one. How to end this? 

277 



By the open door and the equal rights of all nations 

In all ports ; every one included ; no one excluded. 

These lines are not all hexametric, but mighty suggestive ^ 

Not of settlement present so much as of maintenance future. 

312. 

The oceans unite the continents which they dissever 

To break the monotony of one system of motion 

By the genius of builders of ships and the courage of sailors. 

Combining for all on free level the means of dominion 

And bestowing it in the end on the men who deserve it. 

Shall those first to float its advantage be first to sink under it? 

To the genius of empire a colony is an ally 

Where the colonial genius draws not on the empire. 

The oceans demand grand respect unique, and should have it. 

They contribute to gastronomy and commerce big values. 

Geography laid out the seas to dissever for binding; 

God rpade the paradox, and you cannot defeat it. 

The sea is a prairie life-laden instead of root-burdened. 

And bill-passers cannot transform it into a rampart. 

In the end the champion of Neptune is chief of the nations. 

Which of itself shows the folly of limiting port-rights. 

And all double-bassos of severance will yet sing this canto ! 

313. 

William Penn's ex-colony wrenches from me a stump-canto. 
Shall we stand by and stare while ships and trade perish in cinders,. 
The fatal Philadelphian's fire-sea of the envious succeeding 
The beauty and use of the stars and the waters united? 
Shall Neptune expire an unrising Phoenix, and Thaumas 
Be burned in the grottoes occult where the fishes are jocund 
By the Pennsylvanian conflagration of oceans? 
An economist of that fire-state has lighted my fury, 
And I burn like a lump of its coal at its fiend calorific, 

278 



Its demoniac alchemist of petrolian Atlantic ! 

Shall we lose navigation, without which God's planet Is blank to ns. 

Its glories, and foreign sales of Pennsylvanian surplus. 

And the bravery that grows by the fight with the sons of the tempest ? 

Eather perish by ocean this brother of love so high-heated, 

This lurid patriot whose faith is in chances diminished ; 

Let him sizzle to death in the fluid of Penn's opportunity, 

This transcendent citizen of new egoism of delirium, 

This son of a port seeking greatness by ashes of waters! 

314- 

A thing destroyed is destroyed; if rebuilt it is twice paid for. 

The loss is fixt, no matter to whom it be shifted. 

A means of preventing war is too little considered : 

Let the banded assurance companies of all nations 

Refuse to pay any losses whatever by warfare 

Instead of insanely seeking inordinate premiums. 

The valorous and light-hearted sinners who vote army conflicts 

Would then pause and ponder prior to doing the vote-act. 

In a long struggle no premiums could pay for the losses 

To inflict which the high purpose is of modern equipment. 

Nearly bankrupt insurance bacame by the fire of Chicago, 

What would result from destroying a dozen Chicagos? 

More capital lost than to-day exists in assurance. 

Bet not on the combination of good luck and avarice ; 

Even if one could win all the others w(5uld only be beggars. 

And no one is richer that some other fellows are paupers. 

315- 

Though I oppose war for deciding nothing by merit 
Except the luck of the combatants, and may be their merits, 
If any, or that of their issues, yet I see the necessity 
Of being ready to devastate when the threat comes ; 
Not to threaten any one, but to make menace hopeless. 

279 



Is an occult starvation slowly absorbing our stamina ? 

The overproduction of man in this tiqht little island 

Leaves him not quite half enough home-grown food, wilh the chances 

That some vicious foreign dullard will cut off the other half, 

Thus spoiling his market as well as leaving us hung-ry 

Whose average dinners are neither too big nor too frequent. 

Is this th.c v.ay to breed men fit to follow Guy Nevil, 

A'ery much of a buccaneer, but no worse than the next best? 

Coarse plenty and rugged certainty were the portions 

Of all Britons once ; now they pend on our foreign relations. 

It brings up Lord ^^^olseley's suggestion of general conscription. 

All other peoples conscript ; let us look to our assets ! 

Imagine our food-ports blockaded and hunger in menace ! 

^^'e should tumble over ourselves volunteering by millions, 

\'oluntering by race as no other has dared in its frenzy. 

I'.ut trampling ourselves as a mob into ruin by millions. 

This invites a flamboynnt picnic in sections colossal 

By those who love us the least throug^h our richest possessions. 

Therefore let us make ourselves conscripts according to Wolseley ! 

316. 

Old men of old races are justified in their insight, 
Blood heritors of tradition the equal of wisdom. 
And when they accumulate insight the years nnist come with it 
As storing the value for homogeneous transmission. 
You are not so much vicious as foolish to label them laggards. 
In the flush of mere youth be not proud of blind vigor Samsonic, 
Nor of experience miscalled ; await ripeness of balance. 
And conscience, yet higher than this, as tribun?il appellate, 
The court of the border-sphere of both sentence and pardon 
"Which in age sits sublime in review of the errors of interest. 
Shrink not from tlie things unknown because unfamiliar : 
They may overtop the best in your previous acquaintance. 
Hxpectnot that youth will be spared, nor great age. for I know this; 
I know that no age finds exemption unless accidental, 

280 



Because accidents and the ignorance of your fellows 

Make you victims ; but they should purpose to keep ofi your premises. 

Great age may survive the theory of fittest survival. 

Do the fittest survive in this sphere and the dead in a fitter? 

This does not involve immortality, neither extinction. 

We may die many times as experiments for high living, 

And then die a final death of disgust at the issue. 

317- 

The physical fall of Rome left its genius survivant 

And the common law of the dead to-day governs the living. 

The poet's pen yet may write for the Premier the program 

Comprising a common lav/ superseding all other ; 

But that bard is far oflf, and the syndicates must remould him 

In accord with the law v>hich makes present common law worthless, 

Only fitted for being supplanted by syndicate statute. 

Ivlr. Depew was the orator of the railways 

Before he stepped out of a syndicate into a Senate. 

Mr. Rogers once made at New Bedford a speech on petroleum 

And lawyers and transportation combined with spring water, 

In relation all with his Company's methods superior, 

Which makes me tremble for Mr. Depew on the forum 

And wonder why Rogers is desk-bent and wasted in silence, 

For he ought to succeed a great many men in a Senate. 

These gentlemen are my friends, so my footing is sanded; 

And I may be the poet to write for a Premier a program 

Which shall promulgate My Syndicate over all others, 

And of the next century we three may step first as immortals. 

318- 

Remember the poor old Court-Fool who is whistling of patriotism ! 
London will not be so populous, rich nor commanding 
If you defend British commerce by quoting the decalogue 
And making Moses an Admiralty-judge in far Orient. 

281 



Meanwhile I advocate alliance that will stop buccaneefing. 

Let the Lion roar and the Eagle shriek, filling with wonder 

The stars that so little a planet should make so high racket 

While two nations fight twenty for freedom of waters and commerce I 

"What do we care for abroad? screamed a patriot unshackled, 

Returned from a tour which might have enlightened a penguin 

If a disposition to learning had governed the transit. 

I am not heaping ridicule here, but quoting a statesman 

Who has since revolutionized his ideas about transit 

And has come to regard as one of his lakes the Pacific. 

Because Dewey was lucky as well as great at Manila, 

The States take pacific possession of all the Pacific, 

Mr. Grievely's ex-friend being orator of the ownership. 

319- 

Westward the trend of the ruler, according to Berkeley. 

While all lovers of light are delighted to run as the sun runs, 

America cannot westwardly overspread Asia, 

And Asia might better not westwardly overspread Europe 

For reasons obvious enough to abbreviate this canto. 

Let empire grow only as civilization can build it, 

Since manifestly at present the two are not synonyms. 

So 't is best not to get too much west in your empire. Lord Bishop I 

320. 

Fate compels us to die or be great : how dare we be timid ? 
Yet patriot am I quite as much for your patria as Britain, 
Because if, after nineteen centuries of more or less Olivet, 
You still bet on a cannon-shot chance to establish your greatness, 
You are hypocrite, in no moral sense above China, 
Whether the morals be measured by Christ or Confucius, 
Or applied to Germany, Italy, the States, or some other. 
Let us all own the world for the good of all men, not for sections, 
Not for water-walled hemispheres contemptuous of equals, 

282 



But in competition of altruists rather than gorgons. 

The seas wall not Britain; they lead to her markets, and from them. 

You can come to Britain and sell, buy, go home, load, and come again. 

If we people our planet to constitute nations for mischief. 

What good would it do us or them to know other planets 

Unless to enlarge our capacity to promulgate 

The system from star to star of saltpetre and sulphur, 

To augment the spheres and the causes of misunderstanding? 

After all, when they think of the uses to which we should put it. 

The Olympians, I deem., laugh at nothing so loudly as science. 

Thus for all reasons, moral and other, we should not be timid. 



321. 

Advanced mind is often no mind, since, at end of the measure, 

The advancement is less that of prophet than that of quack doctor. 

However, general slow growth does not equal one genius. 

But genius it must be ; let not the semblance deceive you. 

Napoleon knew better than France, which still pays interest on his wisdom. 

This outlaw of Vienna, only too glad to surrender 

His forfeited life to his foe the most generous and constant ; 

His own words ; insincere ; but spoken with prompt Latin glibness ; 

Only too happy to spring up the side of Bellerophon, 

Safe afloat in a centre of arms from the vengeance of Europe ; 

Admired in this era by only the dregs of the feudal. 

Take his genius as foil for ours, not on his last island, 

Where his ending leaves him the largest failure in history. 

But ten 3^ears this side of it. Imagine Trafalgar repeated 

With result reversed and our allied foes with two Nelsons! 

Then our genius would envy his genius on his last island. 

With an empire not only collapsed, but three kingdoms in famine. 

Is the study of politics a fraud ? That depends on the student. 

Why do I link the food question so close with the naval? 

I once starved for six weeks in a waste, and I therefore know hunger. 

Put some man who has starved as adviser to the Lords of our Sea-Plows 

And see whether the furrows would not bear more food and better ! 

283 



Z22. 

But whatever befall, tra-la-la, in the fate of our Empire, 

Our monarchy stands for all rights ; and, serene in the duty, 

Shall not be alone in a struggle nor victim of dacoit. 

So sing Laureate and beefy squire ; but Vvhere are the allies? 

We had no foreign friend with our peace-at-any-price program, 

None who trusted the wonderful conduct that let Gordon perish 

And with which the fame of its author will yet have to reckon. 

Have we burned the craven sheet? Have we more initiative than Portug-al 

After miles of moral essays and decades of snubbing? 

The Marquis sings a sweet note in reply to the Russian 

And lays down two ships for a million pounds each. I have confidence. 



Not necessarily freedom means separation ; 

Federals preached this doctrine for four armed years to Confederates. 
The cloudiest fooling I know of envelops this subject. 
Free to stay, free to go ; that is genuine independence ; 
Near or far is merely an incident of geography 
Not to be counted by those who comprehend empire 
Or understand the planet from island or continent. 
Distance, like space, is part of the order deistic, 
And dividing seas bear the bonds and the burdens of union ; 
What they separate they unite ; put that fact in your platform, 
Or set up the ocean commerce of nations as yacht-fun 
To be operate as a bill of expense not of profit. 
Sea-water is much too clear to muddle a doctrine, 
And proximity and remoteness fall overboard as such. 
I am not a doctrinaire, nor is this a mare's nest. 
But as fact it may exert adjustive force in your politics. 
Close aboard is Cuba, 'tis true ; but far, far the Philippines are. 
Justice of dominion bears no relation with water 
Or with land ; either or both justify it perfectly 
When all other facts and incidents justify equally. 

284 



Nations must agree on proximity and remoteness 

Or capsize all political rights that depend for their tenure 

On the near or the far, by fighting as to their meaning. 

This is a hint for reforming the laws of relations 

And for sinking the porcine conceptions hitherto prevalent. 

Islands are merely the summits of submarine mountains, 

The visible surface; but whether by freak of volcano 

Or creative design, my cantos lack science to sing you ; 

Neither is it important for that which I seek to establish, 

New law for nations in comedy of the patriots. 

Just as comic editors ought to fill cabinets and embassies, 

So laws should be made by patriots in comedy-congress. 

Continents equally are but islands expanded. 

Islands henceforth will gravitate neither by latitude 

Nor by bulk; but by higher conditions; and so with the continents: 

Mr. Seward's higher law bore not on slavery exclusively. 

Do you rise any nearer now to duty and destiny? 

You may rise or may fall until destiny compel duty. 

In which you will need an ally, with only one possible. 

Geographic proximity, water between or no water, 

Is a topographic accident not to be counted 

In the inherent right of selection political 

And the indefeasible rights of rebel and sovereign. 

Britain governs the world not as island, but home of great races. 

The Cubans themselves would not deem Cuba fit for such station. 

Three-fourths of the rights of the planets are lodged in its oceans 

With nature's demands of exchange : who defies or ignores them ? 

324- 

With those who seek hemispherical segregation, 
Setting race against race by mere continental division, 
I take prompt and permanent issue in name of all races 
And continents ; not less sacred the coast than the hilltop, 
While the ocean that leads to the beach is as rich as the prairie, 
Is no less in the wisdom and glory of him who made both of them. 

285 



He who thinks otherwise fails as the friend of all sailors. 

Fails as the friend of the equal rights of all tiagdom. 

Would you abolish all that makes up navigation. 

AMiat feeds it, I mean, for evemhing pays for itself ultimately? 

3'here is no walled-oflF America. Asia or Europe, 

But a water-united world not separate by doctrine 

Of Canning or any one else ; no law in such doctrine. 

Or Leif Eriksen and Columbus were sarcasms as sailors, 

The compass-men of a smiling god who enlarges 

The sphere of the demon of irony without mercy. 

325- 

The office of seaman is that of uniting all lubbers 

By exchanging the products of those afraid of being seasick. 

Or those not ideally developed as long-distance swimmers. 

The narrow fierce appetite of the local 'popotamus 

Shall never be anicled in the faith of the peoples, 

But rather the unitive rights of the seas for all nations. 

Xet all peoples refuse to look on the seas as dissevering ; 

Let them look on the foam of their crests as the froth of false doctrine 

Promptly absorbed in the deep solid blue of bond-bearing, 

Or interest-bearing: bond as you choose the significance. 

Cuba is close aboard, to be sure; but far. far the Philippines are. 

Yet I deem that both were annexed for justifying this canto. 

326. 

Editors hereafter ^^•ill take editorials from destiny, 
Except the comic-editors : they always make it 
When left to themselves : and with it they never make trouble. 
For liberty is no longer the partisan bauble 
Of the claygods who never arise above their extraction. 
Duty and destiny have been mingled in politics. 
And the editors and Senators of the forefathers 
Are back numbers since the States joined Britain as leader ; 

286 



Minus quantities they, both at home and in future imperial. 

"Try not to mould the incongruous into net reasons, 

For fate is incongruous in that no one mind can grasp it all, 

And no two quite agree as to what is incongruous in it ; 

I mean any particular fate, such as that of a nation ; 

Not fate total, since over that even the gods used to blunder. 

I rejoice in success, but refuse to be blind to its sources. 

I am glad of success, be it that of a man or a people ; 

But I insist upon localizing the stati; 

On the specific definition of causes ; 

And luck hemispheric involves not political merit 

Any more than wealth involves greatness, or poverty dullness. 

Pointed case was that of Lord Lome and late Editor Dana, 

With the gravity of Pluto, the wit of Mephisto. 

Dana could not answer Lord Lome about text-books of falsehood 

On which anent Britain the youth of a nation are nurtured ; 

So he called him not serious and turned on the hose of his jingo 

As argument to drown truth and federation of interests. 

Once eliminate from your 'lo-quence the chances of quarrel 

And your barnyard expoundings would lessen in vogue and in value. 

Not one line of national enmity in my Cantos ! 

I simply desire to expose the Dan Webster of barnyards 

And fit him for beef, this bull-making bull among peoples. 

But death dealt with inimical Dana, to immense disadvantage 

Of Mephisto as wit, of Pluto as force inspirational ; 

Their reputations diminish by lack of exponent. 

327. 

I care not if luck made him great, neither can I decide it 
At this distance ; whatever it was, he was great, and that ends it. 
He lost not his head in the task, neither shrank from the duty. 
Accepting destiny, and helping both to joint purpose. 
As we deem that the States intend in a large modern area. 
Greatest man best comprehends and best does a great duty, 
Including the duty, too, of accepting his destiny. 

287 



The foremost of all our grand kings was not Alfred, but Egbert. 

He began with the lucky number of seven to build empire. 

Go a thousand years back and seven pillars of state were his basis. 

The succeeding continuity is one of the marvels 

Of achievement ; perhaps the foremost ; are we to dilapidate ? 

Let us smother the wrath of the thought, for I dare not express it. 

328. 

Ere adopting results, am inquisitive of conditions. 

Whether democracy had done equally well with Confucius 

And the Chinese as it has with Christ and the British, 

Example tells not ; we have nothing but inference to go by. 

But experience concerning fresh acres is not inferential. 

Part of my youth was devoted to reverence for Jefiferson 

As father of everything practicable in popular sovereignty, 

Brazil was a giant monarchy and resplendent 

In everything nature creates from diamond to snowpeak, 

Its government putting in vogue certain unique ideals. 

Dom Pedro was up to the level of Diaz of Mexico, 

With even less constitutional twist in authority. 

Rating constitutions as serious stays in a crisis. 

But the imperial Portuguese in the tropics 

Figure not up with the Britons on temperate zone prairies. 

But psychical research alone could determine the value 

Of how much race and zone each contribute to civilization. 

But let us quit overrating the ethnical value 

Of political institutions where all are imperfect. 
\ Monarchy is not so mammonite as some others, 
j Altho' it hath plenty of faults ; but I know a respublica 

Where the dullest, if opulent, eclipses the brightest 

Unless, too, the brightest display with spondulics his lustre. 

Race is, after all, more important than system or latitude. 

Jefiferson was great, I repeat ; I was one of his henchmen. 

He precipitated a fight whereof the evolution 

Shows revolution up in the only just instance, 

288 



That of adversaries reverting to first common principles. 
As in man there is something greater than man, so in races 
There is something greater than many great men for a purpose ; 
And great man Jefiferson may have been greater as instrument 
In giving the dual convergence to manifest destiny. 
This canto conveys him my compHments on his birthday 
With so many dinners celebrate in Manhattan. 



329- 

I remember the day when Britannia was Genius of Europe 
With Wellington saviour of freestates all 'round the Atlantic, 
According to Cardinal Hfred, who is far from pro-British ; 
With Wellington, most important of soldiers for freestates ; 
When the sea beat the beach with the rote of the sailor triumphant, 
And the trident afloat taught the sceptre ashore to surrender ; 
When Nelson proclaimed to the nations an ocean dominion 
To which that of the land must defer in expansion of freedom,. 
And prevailed on Napoleon not to land armies in Canada. 



330. 

You see, Britain alone is free with freedom the real, 
The pure simon, the sublimate essense in fog or smoked sunshine ; 
Free to destroy herself with a high moral Ministry 
That deprecates war in a way which invites its beginning ; 
The freedom of absolute right and not that of privilege, 
Making equally stalwart the conscience, the arm and the courage ; 
Of the man in himself and thereby of the whole of the people, 
But if Czar and republic know how to surpass in cohesion 
This system, how can we 'scape an imperial literary backslide? 
Fromi the Ionian Isles to the days before Egbert 
Our New Lights may illuminate yet every phase of surrender. 
Great Britain, the foreigners tell me, is merely her Premier, 
Who, if she change him six times a year, has six policies. 

289 



If so, 'tis much worse than our cousins on tariff and currency. 
But we will not present them our commerce and enipu-e in sections. 
Once they comprehend that, our symposian burden is lighter, 
Though it always suggests to the envious a chance to assault us 
And maketh the very existence of Britain more difficult. 
Therein is the giant crime of the British idealogue. 
They who challenge the expediency of empire for these kingdoms 
IMight challenge as well the expediency of their conmierce, 
Or of the popular requirement of earning a living. 
Since the two are not separable ; such part of the Empire 
As we might renounce would be instantly seized by another 
And promptly tariffed against us ; would that be expedient ? 
Prescience is aglow even in the ashes of Beaconsfield ! 
How can the electorate tolerate his opponents? 

331. 

A peace-at-any-price kingdom surrounded by empires 
AMiich tremble by tread of their troops, cannot live by despatches. 
Peter and Frederick the Great quote no Closes, nor William tl:c Sudden. 
Every nation gets what it deserves in the end, ours included. 
I write for to-day, or a hundred years hence, or a thousand, 
And against transferring the Foreign Office to a pulpit 
Or to magazines loaded with idealogical freedom : 
Fifty years ago this was played out by the New Lights of Boston ; 
Faneuil Hall men. remembered only for beating Dan Webster, 
Who won half the State of Maine with his pen, and they not a thing! 
Of course, when ideal days come I shall be an idealogue 
If I live ; indeed I have always longed for the chance to be. 
I shall then be literary, too ; and shall lecture, Aminta-like. 
But literary politics will not bring these ideal days ; 
It invites, rather, square foot encroachments, or giant aggression. 
■Could we smash a dual alliance without any alliance? 
Patriotism is, in your spite, quite a comical quantity, 
And when statesmen are solemnly funny, laughter rebellows; 
Between continents it rolls on the tops of the billows. 

290 



1 once eastvvardly crossed the Atlantic before a full gale of it. 

'Twas addressed by the West to us : we took it with dignity. 

Great Britain is gifted with dignity of two qualities, 

One of which it pays to assert ; the other to let some one else assert. 

The Columbus of nations in polity, morals and science. 

May we navigate future keels between Bangkok and London, 

Or shall we seek seas surreptitious to carry free commerce ? 

Navigation, you see, not always depends on ships only. 

The right to the sea needs an army as well as a navy ; 

This little fact may be realized ere I print it. 

Let us make France happy by promptly quadrupling our army. 

Only Britain works problems out gratis for use universal 

From the Constitutions of Clarendon to the Colonies, 

And yet to be blufifed on our trade in the south-east Pacific 

On account of some chief always wrong in our foreign relations. 

In the relations, that is, which insure our existence ! 

The Transvaal war showed us up as mere maskers in empire ; 

And gave us the luckiest experience in all British history 

Unless cant and blufif may sustain our attempt, as they cannot. 

As a scarecrow 'gainst wonderful men I have set up this canto, 

Against every mere wonderful man, whatsoever his ofjfiice. 

332. 

I think I could follow the light of my Japanese noble. 
Of him whom the ghost of Demosthenes praised in my fancy, 
Higher guide of an earlier dawn in an orient more shining. 
If Britain would swear against Premier of Penjdeh forever. 

333. 

The human mind is too small for the globe which it lives on ; 
For its structure, use, age ; for the hope in its cosmic relations, 
And even for avoiding misuse of its simplest provisions. 
Some have said that it soars, and it may ; but its pinion is laggard, 

291 



That of tliis human intelligence winged in the doubtful. 

Yet I have no idea why our God should so make it or leave it. 

That is the reason why bibles and systems oppress us, 

And priests who annihilate creeds by their self-contradictions ; 

I refer to political preachers as well as religious. 

\\'e are too small for large usages in right thinking. 

And fevered brains give no aid in the scope of our struggle ; 

We lapse to participants simple in their delirium. 

I have studied this out in the deeps and the steeps of the Andes, 

In their low humid heats and the rarefied air of their snowtops 

\Vhere I heard the planet revolve in the chasms of their silence. 

And in tlie nomadic valleys and crests of the oceans. 

And on their unrufBed level as well, where the color 

And absence of limitation abound \vith expansion 

And e^cpression : yet can I think to no proper conclusion, 

Neither otter the slightest suggestion for building new prophet. 

334. 

Strip religion of superstition and make it devotion 

To true moral aims proven up by strict secular standard. 

And you will do more to justify Christ and salvation 

Than all tlie cathedrals have wrought since the crucifixion, 

^More than you could if you gave every fellow a million. 

There is no other way to make a success of religion 

As capital makes a success of itself : none denying. 

All accepting, simply because it achieved what it promised. 

Achievement, you see. not argument, doctrine and preaching. 

Is required ; not recourses of theologicians in interest. 

335- 

Of small men in small office swell not the self-sufficiency ; 

Rather compress them both into their natural circle. 

In making tidewaiters saints of high pay, you but mock them. 



Not room enough in one ship for the genius of Rodney, 

And a captain first-rate might fall off in an admiral's battle. 

If it be wisdom to wrench from the king's hand his sceptre, 

Would you have it swung as free mace by policeman imported ? 

The crown never cracked your free crown ; free policemen have done it. 

And free magistrates, partly imported, have freely upheld them. 

Be not too gay in the swing of shillelagh municipal ! 

A g-ay race is just lovely for fun, but not much on self-government. 

Either you will not examine your failings, or dare not, 

Lest your analysis end in collapse of your fetich. 

You may think that you know, or think that you think, yet do neither. 

iWhen wild with the combination of progress and patriotism 

Arrest yourself and bethink ; many others your equals 

Have been equally wild ; then prance a pace in reaction, 

Which itself at particular stages of frenzy is progress. 

There are many forks from the 'pike, but not always a guideboard. 

Recall that God m.ade the whole world for the whole of his children. 

And forget not what President Lincoln said of his judgments. 

Albeit one higher than Lincoln established the statute. 

Nor what for a point that is sharper he said of the swordmen. 

And do not exaggerate Lincoln ; he would not be grateful 

That you should attribute to him what v.as due to occasion. 

He was warm of heart, but experience had made him a cynic 

In time to be wise for the station that worried and killed him ; 

But he was not proud, neither vain ; and despised misconception 

More if it oven-alued than if it decried him. 

Just appreciation is what is required, and not glamor. 

Important events are belittled by injudiciousness, 

And important men ; and overesteeming is part of it. 

It gives to ideal figures false force with a people. 

Leading astray both the love and the faith that prompt worship. 

336- 

Demagogy is damned in the virtues it stifles, 

Which it drowns in the roar of the vulg^ pride and self-praises 

293 



That destroy aspiration by libelling it affectation. 

It leaves on the surface only its own superiorities. 

But the thicker the water the denser its power of flotation. 

We know that offences will come, but twice woe to their autlior ! 

Not he who first draweth the sword may be second to sheath it. 

And the mere luck of having big friend may save you vast treasure, 

A river of blood, and scandals expanded and numerous. 

Has some sly prophet-fiend cut the not of the legends Mosaic, 

Thus turning the true light on you and the dark on your parsons ? 

A stump sermon is this, not a speech, just to vary the topic. 

337. 

II y a un plafond a Versailles qui insulte ptusieurs peuples, 
The Teutons in point ; yet 't was there they proclaimed liieir new empire- 
La revanche est douce, mais elle ne va pas toujours au meme peuple. 
The Salle des Glaces ceiling expresses as much the republic 
As it does L. Ouatorze ; the genius of Gallus a-crowing. 
In the coming war of revenge to be played for gross millards 
Let i\Ietz hoist the flag of Siam as the sign of estoppel, 
Of freedom, equality, brotherhood in a republic ; 
Not a homogeneous evolution like those of America 
Born ;Minerva-like in fresh fields of experience spontaneous, 
With new institutions selected from systems discarded 
By the giant minds who escaped the punition of treason; 
But the government which divides them the least, as Thiers said : 
No division, however, about dividing another. 
Siam, a white elephant on a red field ; quite suggestive 
In the South Pacific, O France, my aunt among nations! 

338. 

If Abigail acquaint me correctly, Belial was the genius 

Of mischief, of fun etalonic, glorious and lurid. 

His Christian successor and heir is the genius of Jingo, 

294 



Whose giant fun I should love were it not for the danger, 

Since my passion and relish for fun so transcend all the others 

That I wish my old age may exhale as the chairman of fun-club. 

Our conception of fun is heavy, narrow and insular. 

The thing properly means any joke from a pun to a riot, 

Whereat anybody may laugh, from a mare to an empress, 

Or from python to man, if it happen to tickle the temper. 

Jingo has come to be genuinely a newspaper Klondike. 

They have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury, 

And are madly gone on an ink-spree to punish the people 

Whom their god castigates into wisdom through figures rhetorical, 

A process quite loud, slow and queer, but the gods know their motives. 

But let them proclaim this as bluff ere it drift into bloodshed. 

We hope they will tip us the wink that 't is part of their fun-stock 

Till we laugh like Nabal, the most rollicking son of Belial, 

And all cause of -offence evanesce in a cacchinate paean. 



339- 

Is democrat doctrinaire merely of demos embodied, 
Carrying a chip on his shoulder and hitting his equal, 
Hitting Aristotle, Aristides, Perikles, Plato 

Because they were not with his fathers or did nothing for him? 
Do not call the brass band ; we can both think more closely without it, 
I mean the democrat everywhere, not in one country, 
And whom I protest I respect more than any who flatter him 
And then laugh in the sleeve, pop-sovereignty's favorite diversion. 
I swear by the strength of great men that I feebly seek wisdom. 
If destined to general dominion no query can hurt him, 
While criticism may give him both windfall and landfall. 
Is he capable of coherence? 'Tis a fine question. 
Is his party true to conviction or sure of cohesion? 
In the Philippines I have him just where I want him, 
And in Cuba ; and thence he will answer ; and no fear of the answer. 

29S 



340. 
Is the brotherhood of man a lighting fraternity 
Where high principles are arra3^ed for destroying each other? 
May be our foreseers and their shibboleth-force are exhausted, 
With moral disintegration surviving their errors. 
I have not yet personally found possessor or professor 
Of money who deems misfortune other than dereliction. 
There be those who may not so deem, but I have not found them. 
Shall we use the sword on the Gordian scheme of vicissitude 
And abolish the same by exterminating its victims ? 

341- 

Let us be up and doing ; well ; but what shall we fly at ? 

Inspiration works both ways, sure as the Lord and the devil : 

If not, what purpose would there be in a Lord and a devil? 

Shall we trouble ourselves to turn into moral lawyers 

And go through all the principles and details of obligation 

Prior to taking up duty? No, we will jump at it. 

Investigation of moral law is too long a preamble 

To our resolutions ; we get tired before we begin them. 

We know that the British fill history with cases of grasping 

In first instance, and building, and working in all situations 

As architects, psalmists, mechanics, merchants and shipmen 

For others' good and their own, whether the others accept it 

Or die fighting it ; which is proof of mixt good and evil 

Inextricable : Let us pitch into Spain and dO' likewise ! 

Why should not the filibustero forerun the missionary ? 

Filibuster is product also of civilization. 

Of the dregs of it ; and ere it cast its own dregs out, 

Let it offer its food and wine to the hungry and thirsty, 

Employing the dregs as yeast to raise appetite for them! 

342. 

Tc a swelling nation Great Britain showed amity saving 
Without which that nation was beaten prior even to beginning. 

296 



That was moral amity only, but it was ample 

With an amplitude which no nation but Britain could offer. 

Now, as to reciprocating- such friendship, let Britain ask something 

And she will be told her friendship was simple neutrality ; 

Official cognizance only of unofficial leaning to win with ; 

Or if more, let her show it, and compromise herself with the others 

On her own showing. Whom next shall we save on like conditions? 

Perhaps Portugal, which we created ; and later we saved it. 

343- 

Great ideas, if expressed, never perish ; but you must express them. 

This is hard to get done in the midst of small restless ambitions 

Where a pulpiteer seeks to govern the world by an epigram 

On a cubic inch of a topic as big as the planet, 

Or some poet or literary fellow tries to do likewise. 

Notions are pushed by the energies of conceivers 

Who are victims, willing or not, of the vagaries they cherish. 

They displace great ideas or ideals, and flourish as fallacies 

With a deplorable vigor which nothing can stifle 

Except ridicule spread and sprayed by the printsheet comedians. 

Thus in the welkin of thought as in the political circus 

Common interests call aloud for the pleasantest element ; 

Since seriousness feeds on itself till it swells into tragedy, 

Seriousness of any description, private or public. 

Therefore let us thank God most of all for creating comedians. 

Who are foils or shields, for attack or defence, as is needed. 



344- 

No nation, no men can anchor mankind to an era. 
Christ made us fast to a principle, not to an epoch: 
So did Mahomet, politician as well he as prophet. 
Political institutions are destined to be economic, 
Whether they who built them knew it or built for a fixity, 

297 



Since true sense has ceased to exist in political squabbling. 

This is not your chance for an inkshed, but for haircloth and pebbles. 

On your past political frolics which burden the peoples. 

Some barnacles deem progress stopped about Seventeen-'Ninety. 

Other barnacles invented continent-union, 

Thus making geography a political tyrant 

For amalgamating conditions essentially alien, 

And for seeking to limit the limitless rights of the oceans 

To attach and to correlate as well as to separate. 

Then came the Philippines instance, detaching all barnacles, 

Founding planetary union, islands, continents, oceans. 

All waters and lands, in accord with the scheme of creation. 

Thus God seems to look out for his peoples in spite of some people. 

\Mien the gentlemen captained by \\\ishington trusted the people 

They trusted the mass whom they knew ; not those whom they knew not ;. 

And that mass, in a moment of morphine, trusted some others 

Who awakened them to the revelations of Lexow, 

To which has been added the inquest of Coroner Mazet, 

Until politics only seem free in political freedom. 

Why should colonial gentlemen know more than Plato 

About a republic, or anticipate immigration 

Of those classed by legislation as undesirable ? 

Perhaps God permitted their idealogical practice 

That limits might be fixed to goodness by legislation 

And mankind might revert to an aspiration more normal. 

345- 

The western colonial continents will beat Europe 
Because of its interspiteful relations of races, 
Till lust of continent-union shall rive the Americas 
^\nd there set up rival empires for neutralization. 
And establish the law of jeehaw all over the planet. 
Europe is paralyzed by the jealousies of its peoples, 
The weaker of which refuse to live up to the strong ones^ 
Preferring starvation in rancor like dogs in the manger 

298 



To permitting the potent to follow the bent of their genius. 

The states of blackmail oppose empire they never were born for. 

Thus shall Europe stultify all its best gifts of dominion, 

Its wisdom of ages, the power of its savings and science. 

New Africa, flushed with colonial ambition and vigor, 

If not arrested by war too early and general, 

With Briton leading, possibly one American aiding 

Until lust just suspected shall arm for a sway hemispheric. 

Will keep open the Nile and the seas from Gibraltar to Aden. 

If this be a dream of to-day your spites will translate it 

To-morrow into a fact, Europe, savage with envy. 

With one of the larger Americans ready to follow 

Your example when lust of dominion shall stir up resistance 

And for self-defence make a Europe-to-come of the Latins, 

Triple and dual alliance there also offsetting each other. 

Yet I put faith against faith for a contrary issue ; 

Though the bet might be even on morals or lust in this movement. 

Human nature dominates here, not political system. 

And my faith, after all, takes root in political shiftiness, 

Shame and weakness at once of whatever proclaim ne plus ultra. 

But I humbly pray my big States to use long circumspection i 

Even a share of industrial domination cannot mean continentism. 

The political difficulty of governing the unwilling. 

And that still greater of subjugating insurgents, 

And that yet greatest of all, the military conquest 

Of millions of square miles and peoples, are very deterrent 

Even in the first contemplation of cross-roads orators. 

Moral suasion and tariff-wisdom are more to my fancy. 

Because, if destined to universal dominion, 

War would be superfluous ; and if otherwise destined, 

War could not beat fate ; and the sons of predestination 

Are demons if they force quarrels to v/in natural purpose. 

346. 
In this canto I bleat of black sheep ; let white mutton applaud me ! 
Patience and shuffle the cards with no moneyed men betting ; 

299 



That summarizes one system of making' you happy. 
A\'hy gape hke a hungry lost soul at the millions of Cachecaisse? 
The millionaire's riches are his ; not a guinea for your use, 
Not even a cocktail to pay you for staying an earthquake ; 
You saved yourself, and the opulent gent was an incident. 
Your duty to do and your god's to reward; that relieves him. 
If I say something new they will say there is nothing new in it. 
Their interest is to proclaim this a subject exhausted 
And to justify god, the millionaire and the pauper 
As the trinitarian estate from which no escape is. 
These sheep are in any light black, or are white among negroes, 
Among whom black sheep are normal, a negro once told me. 
And white sheep rare exceptions, he was proud to say. this black parson ; 
Or old lambs of the devil in any case if they preach thus. 
Let them feed the flocks with the former food, these new pastors ; 
^^'e know that on which we grew fat, and on what might grow fatter. 
Shiver not institutional timbers or other material ! 
Cathedral is an institution ; so is a battlefield. 

Cathedral tells what Christianism should be; battlefield what it is. 
Let us preserve institutions, just like the heathen ! 

347- 

Iconoclastes and ecclesiastes united 
In me, if they be, why do I not give you a system? 
How much of my theme would you use who reject all the others, 
^^'hich lack nothing themselves, but which you lack the spirit to follow? 
I am not a ]Mahmoud ; shall I laugh at myself for a lesser. 
For an Andy Jack ]\Iagic Staff formerly of Alanhattan? 
Not ambitious am I where you have discouraged so many. 
I prefer to remain a satirist, even a critic ; 

An aged light loiterer in ways that lead cheerfully graveward, 
^Mio calls your attention to problems inviting solution. 
Repetition of platitude may push the race forward ; 
If only in rage to get out of the sound of the sawmills. 
Those where triteness is whipsawn in blocks and conundrums are fashioned. 

300 



I am also disheartened, remembering the doom of Cassandra, 

Who, weary of knowing too much without force of persuasion, 

Besought her god-lover resume the gift-curse of prediction. 

And proudly died prophetess rather than marry Apollo, 

Hard god of the bards and fine arts who imposed the condition. 

No prophet was ever a man of trained mind, since no training 

Permits the assumption of office so thankless and vapid 

Unless he be drilled for the role of foreteller empiric. 

Other reason why it is preferable not to be founder 

Is that churches sometimes take in vain the names of their prophets. 

Not always profession of priest includes purpose of seerage. 

And misdedication of edifice frequently happens. 

Yet one we know that has two dedications for surety. 

Sancta Sophia of Stamboul radiates fame from two prophets. 

One morally best; the other intellectually wisest. 

348. 

I have tried to practise the good which the parsons inculcate, 

And am short in my admiration of sinners successful, 

And of him whose sole duty seems that of the jewsharp of platform,. 

The professional optimist of a swallowtail lecture. 

The dispenser of sections of sweetness and light that elude us ; 

Of Dick Funsmith, whether we laugh at his jokes or their absence. 

Or the Borean guflfmaster bluffing the victims of suffrage. 

If prophet at all, I would live in a land where no stones grow. 

I can let laurels slide, but I would not be smitten like Naboth, 

Nor accept in a public a god more severe than Apollo. 

The possible forces itself into vision translucent; 

The translucent is slowly expanding to vision transparent 

Till the light burn the film of enigma before the immortal, 

When the revelation glorified shall surprise us. 

The seer of abolished death having opened the future 

As the ultimate achievement of psychical research. 

Let us pair off; you cannot disprove nor I prove it, 

For the day is not yet for exploiting all worlds to our worldlings.. 

301 



"'TIS the neutral land breeds the mirage seductive and splendid 

AVhere hope and intelligence halt in the parry of effort. 

"What do you deem of this unbodied figure titanic, 

Of my heretic-seer intangible of a sunbeam 

\\'ho shall yet ere we die lift the veil of the first transformation. 

This son of two worlds who shall cut himself free of the drosser, 

Man still, but subliming himself that he deify manhood ? 

349- 

Would you prefer to suffer the scourge of the righteous 

And rather wallow in wishes than build a rich commune 

Where no single vast wealth might find foil in the state of the pauper, 

Taking Christ for his church, and not other men's churches as Christian? 

Despair would be mine were I not long too old to be hopeless. 

Great age outlives too much vicissitude to be pessimist, 

The vicissitude likewise forbidding it to be optimist. 

I believe you will yet be renewed, but can name not the titan. 

Will he surpass Christ who to death shall foreshow the undying 

And in light inextinguishable fuse all religions and doxies? 

Let us give up the riddle. I think I see Satan laughing 

At those who require to be stung into happier conditions. 

Are the gods merely devils up-gifted instead of down-gifted? 

I.^t us stow them away in a museum of beautiful lumber ; 

Individual incubi of the nightmare of mythics. 

Their glamored truths have hallucinated a planet 

Instead of endowing a race with concreted ideals. 

350. 

Your self-deceit, visions and prayers are the charm of the C}Tiic. 

You are not deciding questions. Half a century I waited 

For a single finality, and am still looking for it, 

Though ideal conditions seemed to prevail in your favor. 

A Julius once set up an empire for Octavianus 

And got killed that another might swell into fame as Augustus. 

302 



You are not yet killed, but have been doing not very much better. 
In the terms of the irony of the gods he was able : 
Though I do not approve Julius wholly, it hurts me to say this. 
It is all titillation. tympanic in funtank political. 

351. 

A wonderful Premier threatened the house that a question 

Of United Kingdom concern might become international, 

Should he miss the first of his series of steps toward heptarchy. 

In the comedy divine of the patriot sardonic 

No other act was so startling nor suffered so tamely. 

Goethe dreamed nothing like this as a scheme for Mephisto. 

Dared no Eliot nor Pym accuse him as wicked Earl Strafford? 

Yet, O Shade of Lord Strafford, forgive ! If mistakes were thy portion. 

So were bigger valor and gifts, until casuists bigger 

Than thy virtues and errors combined, could get rid of thee only 

By act of attainder ; not by laws, but by statute defiant 

Of laws as they stood ; a nation wiping a man out. 

This was one of the British strokes of state that fill Britons 

With prayer, and with shame for their ethnological science. 

I will not compare thee with him who would wipe out the nation, 

Thou strong man for union dead in a treason fictitious. 

Thou whose end, on his scaffold, the king declared justified his end, 

Sole Briton who might have rendered Cromwell impossible ! 

Cromwell, equally "thorough" with thee in whatever the puritan 

Condemned in thee, and whom later the nation rejected, 

But not too late to release thy renown from its stigma, 

Thou Englishman not the less true because thou wast royalist 

Too faithful to one not too high to be faithless in friendship, 

352. 

When I was reformer I used to think that if history 
Could be wiped from the mental tablet and each generation 
Take a fresh independent start like each individual, 

303 



Not handicapt, just detached like a child from its parents, 

How much larger life would be, how much fitter for following-. 

But I looked the Americas over, and there lived very nearly all over, 

And studied them in their freedom from handicap ; freedom 

So complete as to authorize them to insult the anterior annals, 

When their politics seem to require it, of nations parental ; 

And I thus learned that freedom from history does not exempt us 

From the evils recorded therein ; and that the handicap 

Is in nature itself; and this fact called me down as reformer. 

Pulled me off as pulpiteer from the crusade on Clio. 

353- 

Political freedom depenas not on any religion, 

Nor denominational faith nor particular prophet, 

Since the Greeks and Romans enjoyed it in spite of Olympus, 

Or imagined they did; and some Norsemen in spite of Walhalla 

And of pontifex and puritan built on it systems. 

Till majority takes minority for a Pharisee, 

And the ins can see in the outs hypocrisy only ; 

While some citizens see in free commerce a crime against capital 

To which labor ought to contribute as part of its duty 

More largely in future than in the past, while new statesmen 

Seek to stagnate the seas with the sewage of continentism. 

.Faith has brought us so far in politics and religion. 

354- 

I am the friend of the Turk. Our old English puritan, 
With the gilt-edged faith of the golden rule, was a preacher 
Of peace and war-robber of land among victimized races. 
And with doctrinal stuffing of both could have smothered the Moslem, 
Had not the latter been great some two centuries too early, 
As Longfellow shows, though that is not the hent of his story; 
This hadji in the West who overran Indian, witch, Quaker, 

304 



This spreader of all sorts of rights o'er the square miles of others. 

Quit your riotous bluffing-, ye who are guardians of freedom, 

And suppress your stateboys a-boil with the fury of faction ; 

No matter the age of the leaders, the raving is boyish. 

Why not expand modern empire by conquering your vices 

Instead of o'erspreading the civilized world with their odium ? 

Mightier he who conquers himself than who captures San Stefano. 

The infidel Turk, like the Christian Spaniard, is cruel. 

But Armenian is worse at rebellion than Cuban or Fenius; 

And the hand of power ought not to be pressed to light touching 

When the hand of the rebel is ready and red and gratuitous. 

And, unless by imperial cataclysm, hopeless of winning. 

I am punished even yet for my wrongs ; even so let the Turk be ! 

Not the less, if he must be slain by the Pope of Siberia, 

Faith and country may slide; I am Moslem until the last trumpet. 

I have just found a chance to make a stump speech about Russia. 

Like the rest, it means nothing : of course I am friendly with Russia, 

As I am with Aunt France when she shows just respect to my mother. 

355. 

The social recognition of religious toleration 
May mean only indifferentism, O President Eliot ! 
Manhood suffrage implies that Harvard stands merely for irony ; 
The way you explain this away is strictly sophistic. 
You were betting, I guess, that no one would care to refute you. 
If electors are fitted without it, why would you fit them ? 
Were you founded to teach that superfluous expense may be justified; 
For the using of time which might otherwise profit the citizen ? 
Your book shows how education may handicap nature, 
Not uplift ; and it begs several questions while feigning to answer. 
Freedom from Europe with Europe ; freedom from your onset, 
From another Mexican war as the Mexicans see it. 
With Europe allied, would annihilate the Monroe scheme. 
Make the Americas really free, and not tutelary provinces, 
And Asians, as part of God's family, shall inhabit America, 

305 



As America, spite of itself, has a fate Asiatic. 

Extension is met by extension of doctrine and justice, 

And not by discovery of motive after a triumph. 

The book of a secular cloisterman settles nothing- 

Except this, that he taketh the view which his cloister instructeth. 

Preserve your fine Halls ; but bombard into brickdust the system 

Which confoundeth what is with the things which should be, Mr. Eliot ! 

356. 

The Mediterranean will not be free when we leave it 

Save to those permitted the privilege of its freedom, 

But Great Britain is first among those that will not get the privilege, 

Britannia, who held it free to the world nineteen decades. 

'Twill become the Canadian Pacific Railway of seaways, 

Doing for all the world what that route does for all North America 

And for much of the commerce that runs between Europe and Asia. 

Six nations or more will patrol its waters of privilege. 

Making trade subservient to jealousy miscalled dignity. 

Then per hap the United States will become its custodian, 

Unless Europe should draw up a tariff line at Tarifa, 

And put up a Canning-Monroe job to save peace and safety 

Which the States would not menace in overriding coast jealousies. 

But we shall be always permitted to hold on to Cyprus, 

Isle of Venus the First and our Richard the First and Lord Beaconsf, 

Dear to us all the way from Berengaria to Dizzy, 

Dear in the fun of the gods, and maybe the theatre 

Where Britannia will play empire played-out to an audience of empires. 

357. 

Fundamentally second-class nations cannot be first-class ; 
The grasp of this giant truth will yet strangle the politics 
That seeks to seal treaty-ports up against trade universal. 
Time will not turn back to oblige continental diplomacy, 

306 



2^either permanently stop at Tarifa for customs. 
Jeffersonian constitutions are merely charts for amendment, 
Mere parchments providing the means for enlarged constitutions 
In boxing the compass of empire ; and with or without us, 
The waterways between Socotra and Atlantis 
My States may hold free from the jealousies Middle Terranean. 

358. 

I once fancied I caught a satirical glance from Lord Chatham, 

A quick frOwn from a brow of the past that had wrought for the future, 

As I stood on his grave, where his statue is very impressive. 

And it suscitated a doubt that we still are maintammg, 

Though free from the taint of vainglory for what he bequeathed us. 

First among equals, or higher, or victim of envy. 

He seemed to imply that he ought to find equal successors. 

Many moments are great, and some men ; only few are imperial. 

Shall the moment of empire look vainly for subject imperial, 

One more great in not wishing a crown than he would be in wearing one ? 

Guy Nevil, who stabbed his horse dead in the Battle of Towton 

As the sign that he would not retreat and must not be beaten, 

Was a maker of kings, and such subject is greater than sovereign. , 

Bismarck and Beaconsfield, too, figure high in this peerage ; 

So high that their loyalty fascinates more than the royalty 

Which that loyalty lifted to places new to the monarchs. 

God keep us loyal all to something outside of egoism ! 

359. 

Alas for all gifts if we have not the gift of employing them ! 
When I hear of great talent I think of its limitations 
And of the useful field Just beyond its vain bailiwick, 
Wondering why it does not press itself over that border. 
Since that is what talent should do in proportion to greatness. 
And sentiment at its circumscription escapes me 
in laughter or tears, as sorrow or irony govern. 

307 



Not one of the great who wrote mortuary screeds on Prince Bismarck 

Could have achieved a tenth of his travail or triumph. 

Yet some dub him not great because of devotion to Germans 

Instead of mankind, or humanity or something of that sort. 

This is intensely symposian. Are Germans not human? 

Work for humanity and get left for the fun-men : 

Work for a section thereof and win purpose and honor. 

They lay out a full line of rot, as a bagman would call it. 

Luther was an accident ; Bismarck a master of accidents, 

Besides being originator and winner of policies ; 

•No founder of faith stands greater than he stands in politics : 

He was capable of being pope of another religion, 

Bismarck a bigger Luther in field much more difficult. 

Dislike him if you like ; but fool not with his fame, O Symposians, 

Because he was not a god in a half-baked Walhalla. 

360. 

Those Englishmen who were capable, as in past ages, 
Of going to Ireland and seizing the lands of the natives. 
Howsoever mediaeval practice and law might sustain them. 
And of living there by mere conquest, and of marrying the daughters 
Of the natives, or forcing them on refusal to marry ; 
Bequeathing the hate of the slave and the lust of the master 
And all qualities akin therewith in the offspring, 
Such passions of course being transmissible without limit 
As well as the passions of antagonistic religions ; 
Those Englishmen were likely to leave as descendants, 
And aided by pratings of constitutional freedom 
For all which the masters only enjoyed, they were likely 
To bequeath a race not found elsewhere unless where I say not. 
This is succinct anthropologic presentment 
Of the Irish, question around the globe, wheresoever 
The spirit of Tammany flourishes, and ignoring 
The housemaid subscription for agitators political 

Whose profession were gone should they get what they ask, and their incomes^ 

308 



And rejecting pretences : study it out from this basis, 

This question blood-soaked in anthropologic conditions. 

You see I intended that nothing be missed in this canto. 

Well I know there are other and different Irish ; but shall we, 

Shall we smash our Empire to placate professional exiles ? 

In another hemisphere shall professional exiles 

From guests become hosts, and of lords of the manor make satraps ? 

361. 

As evidence of the thorough goodwill of my speeches 

I propose the bronze stump of a giant pine of Kentucky 

With Lincoln in attitude ardent whooping the boys up; 

Not the President worn with the duties and turmoil of conflict, 

Not old Father Abraham too great to be lesser than martyr, 

But Abe youthful, uplifting the minds of the early backwoodsmen, 

The young sturdiness that expands into makers of history, 

And that the statue be set in the Square of Belgravia, 

In our centre most aristocratic the mightiest of democrats. 

Not for patronage, but for lesson of contrast and contact. 

Thus proving our proudest are proud of their kin with the plainfolk, 

And that Hardin, Kentucky, may patronize Middlesex, England. 

And here for young Abe on bronze stump I put two hundred guineas. 

362: 

We are victims of fiction and friction from family circle 
Up to conclave and cabinet, and how to get rid of them 
Seems a task yet too large for the manifold caput of science 
As it is for the comedy-men of the press and the hippodrome. 
But my faith in the latter holds out to the end of my booklet. 
I have only one claim ; that of being the bard of the waters, 
Of the unifying force of the Empire of Neptune 
With all other empires ; there is nothing separative in it, 
And I call a halt to all policies which deny it. 

309 



Methinks that I hear you methink in a rogative silence, 
But magna est Veritas, et prevalebit a little bit. 

363- 

Asia looms to the westward with millions eight hundred and over, 

From five to eight thousand miles distant ; too near for safe looming. 

Europe looms 10 the eastward with millions three hundred and somewhat. 

Three thousand miles and six days away or a-near us. 

God arranged water and land, but this looming is dreadful. 

Canada looms on the north with a people contented. 

Having all the traits indicating the fittest survival, 

Determined to be independent and free with old Britain, 

While the southern hemisphere with some thirty-six millions, 

A whole continent close aboard with assorted volcanoes, 

Likewise loom, and will keep at it steadily while we let them; 

Till our doctrine prevail o'er the terrible doctrine of looming. 

God made the land and the seas and all that inhabit them, 

But his eye had gone clearly awry as to possible looming. 

364- 

I have been called a cosmopolite for this comedy 

By a foreign friend who is posed as great man by his country, 

Who said I should be, as mere Briton, too narrow to write it. 

Hardly anything could be less concerned with my purpose. 

My vanity is not touched by the way my high tenor 

Has been flinging notes ; what I seek is my country's attention 

To the points where it needs tO' be called from a point universal, 

The principal one of which is that great nations and little 

Would find loss and no gain from any decline of Great Britain; 

And the next point is to insist till that fact be accepted. 

You may take all the other points in the order that suits you. 

If the execution could only be paired with the motive, 

I were happier far than my prince of Manchuria and prouder. 

As it is I have wrought at my best, and the best does no better. 

310 



Live forever Pendragon my sovereign and permanent witness. 

Poetic figure of fatherhood regal and real, 

Legend-King of the system adapted to all new beneficence. 

By mere process of dropping old humbugs and hitting the rising 

The world in ten decades from this would be social or altru. 

Christ or science would dominate, and political trumpets 

Lie burst on the patriot-graves of wind-lovers of nations. 

365- 
Constitutionism and religion are very high forces, 
But in the day of high strain the czar is the prophet, 
I have noted, and premier and emperor, all in one person. 
In such instance the active principle is suspension. 
This applies to any republic or empire but Britain. 
For such strain we are unprepared while we ought to be ready. 
Big forces ashore, and thereon easy mobilization, 
Are matters wherein we are children still, and may pay for it 
By wreck in empire and in possibility of alliance. 
Give us, then, so much absolutism as may not leave us victims. 
Since Great Britain is at the point of being greater or negligible. 
The reason and fault of this are electoral, not military. 
Nations avoid the need of salvation by paying 
Large price, and much larger for finding it when they need it ; 
Let him who doubts this ask opinion of Senator Edmunds ; 
Or, since the Boer war began, that of Britishers numerous. 
Literary men make poor emperors ; look at Confucius ! 
His political descendants are the prey of all comers 
After twenty-four centuries or more of golden rule doctrine. 
And they turn the other cheek to the outside barbarians 
Abroad as well as at home, for I saw it in the Americas. 
If Britons again permit a literary caste Ministry 
They will deserve to lose more than I care to tell them. 

366. 

At this juncture I pray your deep thought to the dual convergence 
Of manifest destiny to prevent what I warble of, 

311 



Should force or fraud or symposian politics dominate. 
A second-rate power must accept what a first-rate allots it. 
Or a first become second when many first-rates so apportion. 
Parenthesis perilous this : let us keep out of peril 
Ourselves, and manoeuvre our ally out of parenthesis. 
Friendship for one belligerent means war with the other 
If in act it appear: the law imposes neutrality, 
But friend leans to friend despite law ; we are waiting the sequel. 
You comprehend this parenthesis long and mysterious ; 
It applies to a late situation, or to any one similar. 
Ye who think of the Briton as chosen friend of the oceans, 
As the rounding race of surrounded world, or a rounder 
In others' possessions, of merits all accidental 
In first instance, and upheld by bluff and luck later, 
What should we gain, I demand, if we drop to be second-rate 
To placate the moral sense, so assumed, of some Ministry 
Of literary gentry, and the pulpiteers of dissension, 
Orators of higher law administered by competitors. 
Or of the disruption the exiles shout up for a living? 
We should gain the commendation of every ambitious people 
That should keep on in the path we had left and stay first-rate; 
And be praised for contracting ourselves to a Sundayschool island 
And leaving the globe with one rival less to our betters. 
For which syndicates would apportion our product and tariff, 
Foreign-made for us to suit our new foreign relations. 
And, so long as we remained good, guarantee our independence, 
Warrant our freedom like that of Belgium or Portugal, 
Warrant everything except our provisions, till half of our people 
Or more should emigrate to avoid death by famine. 
Adding the British force to some big foreign nation, 
All through Sundayschool policies, instead of maintaining ourselves, 
As hitherto-, first-class at home and invincible. 
Am not inimical to polished minds touching state-issues ; 
I admire them in chairs editorial, on benches oppositional. 
Loving them well in their place, but not out of their places. 
I am a rounder Britannic of rounded experiences, 

312 



Full of egoism here, and with no desire of suppressing it. 

Disguise it as they may, or as we may permit them, 

This is the end, intentional or accidental, 

Of our literary politicians ; and rather than see it established, 

May I participate in imperial cremation ! 

367- 

There will be no dual convergence of manifest destiny. 

When commercial trusts take the place of nobility feudal, 

Everything that distinguished the reigns of King John and his forepops 

May be expected to riot in name of the people 

Until the people break loose and put end to the riot. 

Not only no gratitude but not even recognizance 

May be looked for ; individuals skulk behind syndicates 

To shun what they could not hide and dare not face as units, 

Urging aggregates and the state to ignore obligation. 

But I wish not to see Britain waste her politeness and morals. 

To rejoice and be exceeding glad in our friendship 

Others wait the chance, and we yet may do some ignoring. 

Genius can be superseded by nothing but genius. 

Not by chance nor mischance, but by genius, Great Britain is leader 

In language, liberty, law, navigation and empire ; 

But a pyrotechnic display of assumption and rivalry 

Will estop the convergence. No prophet knows why he is prophet, 

Nor, if sincere, does he care ; nor, if wrong, is he worried 

By honest error of seerage, nor by political motive 

Of what is best not to be said : but an evil is better 

Proclaimed than feared ; disappointment thereby is anticipated ; 

Hypocrisy and affectation, too, are eliminated 

As international factors of contempt and humiliation. 

Planetary coalition only can plunder us. 

I am not disappointed myself ; no, not even astonished. 

The fault is not ours at all, neither that of the exiles. 

Whose ventometric gauge their associates have taken. 

313 



What is it ? I dare not anticipate the unfolding 

Because I prefer to avoid imputation of rashness 

For personal reasons, not out of fear of the public. 

I have grandly whooped up the thing that should be, but that will not. 

When all the world shall comprehend established democracy 

As for half a century I indivddually knew it, 

The logic irresistible of its possibilities 

None of which can be escaped by either its virtues or its wriggles, 

Or by virtues mistaken for fears on the part of its allies. 

Every race will put every hope on some other system. 

368. 

Poet is what he is ; scientist may be nothing but claimant. 
I have paid many guineas to science to have this opinion. 
What gives vein and vogue to one genius and not to another? 
Is it intuition and circumstantial perception 
Which a greater and better may lack by not seizing the moment ? 
This pamphlet is innocent of pretensions to science. 
In behalf of the millions who pray for some sound in their favor 
Since syndicate usurped functions of commerce and government. 
It comprises a cry for another species of liberty, 
Not an architectural plan for constructing the edifice ; 
For liberty from everything that restrains us 
From the more bountiful life due to every Queen's subject, 
More bountiful in all moral and physical senses. 
Yet if man earn money and save it and own it and loan it 
On interest, who shall confiscate it and compel him 
To live down with those who sought loan by the fact of not owning. 
That all fellow-subjects may find in their living more bounty? 
You see, the poet is vague : if he quicken conception 
And call for a symmetrized scheme from the larger pretension 
If not higher skill of the scientist, his full duty 
Is done as one rated the simple street-minstrel of sorrow. 
Not prelate nor soldier, he lays down no canons, nor fires any. 

314 



369- 

Thou fortuitous unit of gods whom we call the Almighty, 
Whether ancient or modern or future the same in thine essence, 
Padishah of true seers, the strong few and the millions fainthearted, 
And existent with only one scope when we leave it untrammeled. 
Thy temples are burdened with images false in conception. 
The ideal debris of the ignorance of all ages. 
In the cowardice graven that lives with the feeble and selfish. 
We pray for light and get figures of speech as the answer, 
Adjuration, niches of statues, tableaux, mitres and counsel. 
Founder of worlds and their beings and father of monarchs. 
We beseech thee for sense as the very first base of religion. 
True conception prior to love of whatever we worship ; 
For the predisposition clear and severe unto study, 
The rich gift of that sense which fails not to reject superstition 
Howsoever embellished by arts that impose on the simple, 
Which we deem we once had and thence strayed by an anstinct of error. 
Exorcise the crude self-conceit we miscall love of country. 
May we cease to look down on our brothers whose bunting is foreign. 
Cease to slay them for preference of other devices and colors 
And of institutions expressed in their chosen insignia. 
Convince us that childish misnames may not mitigate murder ; 
That filibustero is not thy precursor of missionary ; 
That the saws and the laws of the prophets are not diplomatic ; 
That treaties are kept by guns big in the bore and the number, 
Or broken by cannon outfiring the guns which protect them ; 
That the patriot defending the unattacked patria is bogus. 
As well as a threat at inalienate rights of all peoples, 
Worthy only the rock and the chain and the eagle of exile ; 
That the flag of salvation is one, whatsoever the nation. 
And that comedy is divine when its ending is happy, 
Although solemnly comical statesmen are finally tragic. 
Impress us, O God ! with a new definition of thinking 
Which shall justify thy bestowal on man of the thought-gift, 
One from which there shall be no appeal, and against which rebellion 

315 



Shall push the rebelHous beyond the reclaim of the clement. 
Irradiate us, thy sons, with the courage to smash them, 
Those sculpturesque gems of short sight and fraud-faith and unwisdom, 
That we may adore thee anew through no idol-devotion ! 



END. 



316 



THE rESTIVAL OE NIBSYCUS. 

(ADHIRT^L ESCLBCC.) 



The harp, the flute, the bassoon, the trombone. 
Organ, piano-forte, xylophone. 
The vioHn, guitar, octavison 
(This last by Padovani, little known, 
A violin with strings in number eight. 
Of which four merely do reverberate, 
Whereof the inventor came an age too late. 
Or one too early ; which, I cannot state ; 
I knew him well ; his hat was number eight ; 
Those who wear eight are all too soon or late), 
The 'cello, the cornet — but why go on? 
Count in the horn of Roland Count Ronce Val 
Which Charlemagne heard an hundred leagues amain 
From Gorge Ronceval or Fuentarabian Plain, 
By Roland blown the moment of being slain ; 
But Charles could not the summons heed again : 
Or count one like it for long-winded call ; 
The target-bummer's fife, all, till we come. 
Up with the solemn, round and basso drum, 
And the monotonous, snappy kettledrum. 
And cymbals chromatized from wang to wum ; 
All these were in the orchestra, as well 
As those whose duty was to draw their swell 
And by diminuendo let us down 
To that sweet point whereat we long for more. 

317 



II. 

Nibsycus was musician till the hour 
When Richard Wagner struck with novel power 
The earth Columbian spreading o'er it sound 
Which promptly chased all other from the ground 
By Verdi and some dozen others held 
Invincibly till then ; whereon he turned 
An acolyte in train of the new chief 
Of harmony, and thenceforth incense burned 
To him in temple of the fresh belief. 
With letters, too, his mind was proudly swelled ; 
Milton, Pope, Dickens being the prior trio 
Whereto he added Mackay with gran' brio, 
And Wagner as a tutelary dio. 
Yea, music was his fad and forte, I say. 
And that he loved the loud symphonious lay 
Sometimes when it was loudest, and because 
Its loudness passes music's proper laws. 
But, right or wrong therein, I do deplore 
This very off-night taste. Yet it is true 
That rum than music had much more to do 
With his last concert in his native town, 
Whereof the fame to Saratog was blown. 
A treat whose name you can't correctly call 
May take the euphemistic name of ball, 
Or be enlarged perhaps to festival. 
This concert was a pretext for a spree. 
And Nibsycus as friend invited me ; 
And therefore with this tale of optic wile 
Auricular, do I the world beguile. 
He bought out both the tavern and the store 
Of fluid carbon to promote the fun ; 
Likewise of victuals about half a ton. 
Far into the interior of the land 
He from the City took this famous band 

318 



To sound his praises over hills and fens, 

And in the ears of fellow-citizenSj 

Where he was born a landsman for the sea. 

As otherwise he never should have been. 

He also took a vivid serpent-screen 

From India, where snakes most abound, I ween: 

A screen so perfect that they seemed to squirm 

^n vision least askew, to sight most firm. 

But when on it a calcium light was thrown 

For those who had been testing fluent rye, 

It was discussed, and not admired alone, 

So that the razzle-dazzle of the eye 

Aided the razzle-dazzle of the mind 

Until a mind well-poised was hard tO' find, 

Even if to seek that kind we were inclined, 

Where friends in freedom shared fluescent fun 

And each guest strove that justice might be done. 



III. 



But other things than blood will tell in frolic. 

And foremost of them all the alcoholic. 

The guests grew critical, or so believed, 

Whereby a new distinction was achieved. 

They called for Wagner, and then "Louder" cried 

With vigor stentors dared not have defied. 

The leader glared ; then, gazing toward the sky 

Like one who sees three moons, his bat he shied 

By accident upon the floor below. 

In swinging it he had wobbled to and fro. 

To pick it up, below he needs must go. 

But neither chief nor baton reappeared; 

And then more fun on this mishap was reared. 

The orchestra thus left to its own way. 

Each man began his neighbor's part to play. 

319 



Mine host was full — of mirth, and so was I. 
Then each to drown his next did vainly try ; 
While my friend g-rimaced like a ruddy fiend, 
And laughed like one whose laugh had lost its end. 



IV. 



Thenceforth the orchestration took the form 

Of Strauswaltz swollen into thunderstorm ; 

Or earthquake set tO' music, or cyclone 

Arranged as a sonata with the tone 

Preserved of its own Caribbean Sea 

(A hurricane twice happened there to me, 

So that I'm certain of my simile). 

It was for this my friend had hired the hall ; 

To give the country-boys a treat : that's all ; 

And to the last detail arranged his ball, 

Even as to when the gas should be put out 

Suddenly, to provoke a giant shout ; 

And then, that task performed by proper lout, 

The music ceased, and choric yell arose 

That out of window o'er the county strayed. 

So ended this colossal serenade ; 

Of fun-strung concert such the fun-struck close. 

But how we all got home, he tells who knows. 



Saratoga, 13 July, 1886. 

HASTA LUEGO. 



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